


(try to understand) he's a magic man

by sodium_amytal



Category: Arrested Development, The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Development, Crack Taken Seriously, Crossover, Developing Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff, Funerals, George and Lucille's A+ Parenting, Grief, Internalized Abuse, M/M, Magical Realism, Memory Alteration, Minor Character Death, Roofies, Temporary Amnesia, Weddings, a few smut scenes (as a treat)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-22 07:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30034959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodium_amytal/pseuds/sodium_amytal
Summary: The concept of soulmates has been a running joke in the Bluth family. Gob was simply presumed to be alone forever, as though he was an oversight in the bureaucracy of soulmate assignments. But adding color to his vision would be the grandest illusion of all. Gob is certain he’s only seeing half the world, like a magic-eye puzzle that won’t come into focus.And it wouldn’t hurt to have someone who loves him unconditionally either.Or: the Gob/Jim fic absolutely no one even thought to ask for.
Relationships: George Oscar "Gob" Bluth/Jim Halpert
Comments: 12
Kudos: 7





	1. i see your true colors shining through

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow, this is iddier than anything I've ever written for an idfic challenge. I started writing this before even watching either show, having only seen clip compilations on Youtube. I decided to indulge my id and just write this nonsense and figure out how it makes sense along the way. So I binged 5 seasons of each while I wrote, which runs contrary to my usual process of "absorb all the canon first, then write." I thought this would top off around 30k, but it's ballooned to 65k+ and might reach 70k when I finish writing the final chapter, so I guess I'm just Extra™.
> 
> Also, this fic has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7LcnUn3rx1Ix5BlbxnTgrm), because I'm corny as fuck.

It’s a little past midnight when Gob crafts a voicemail to his mother, who’s listed as ‘The Seaward’ on his cell. His thumb hovers over the call button on his phone as he rehearses his message.

“Hey, Mom, just wondering if you were at my show tonight. I probably missed you, huh? It was a big crowd, and after I signed all those autographs, I bet you called it a night. The time difference here is crazy, right? Anyway, let me know if you saw it. This is Gob, by the way.”

Satisfied, he presses the call button to leave the voicemail for real. He’s not expecting the phone to ring twice and to hear her pick up at the other end.

“Gob?” Lucille Bluth sounds irritated, as if Gob has interrupted something of vital importance. “Look who finally decided to call his mother.”

“I — You have my number too, you know,” Gob says. Her tone, and the fact that she answered at all, has thrown him off his script. “You could pick up the phone once in a while.”

“What do you want, Gob? Do you need money again?”

“I wanted to ask if you saw my show tonight. I didn’t see you in the audience, but it was a big venue and—” 

“You know the family jet was seized when your father was arrested.” 

“You could still fly, just, y’know, on a regular plane.”

“And sit elbow-to-elbow with the commoners?” Lucille scoffs. “I’d rather die.”

“So pay a little extra for first class.”

“I’ll refer you to my previous statement.” 

Gob feels the floor drop out from underneath him — which, since he’s squatting in his brother Michael’s attic, isn’t entirely impossible. “So you didn’t see it.”

“Oh, don’t be so morose. If I’ve suffered through one of your magic shows, I’ve seen them all,” Lucille says, and Gob can picture her gesturing with a martini glass, sloshing perfectly good Cloudmir vodka onto the floor. “What do you want me to say? ‘Oh, I just love the part where you cut a box in half that’s obviously two separate pieces.’”

Gob is a magician, illusionist, and escape artist. It’s not the most dignified stage act he could perform (on some days he wishes he’d been blessed with the talents of Jimi Hendrix or Elton John instead), but he makes decent money. Aside from Michael, he’s the only Bluth child with a steady income.

Gob reaches for the nearby bottle of gin and takes a long swallow. 

“You know,” Lucille says, and Gob can tell by her tone that she’s in one of her ranting moods, “if you expect me to hop on a plane to see one of your silly magic shows, you could do the same and visit your father. He’s not getting any younger.”

“Yeah, well, neither am I.”

“I don’t know why you followed Michael to Pennsylvania.” Lucille names the state with the same hushed, scornful tone most people use to say ‘syphilis’ or ‘child molester.’ “Unless you did it to spite me.”

Gob did, but he isn’t going to tell her that right now. “No, I just — I thought it was time for a change. And Michael said I might meet my soulmate if I—”

“Oh, _please_! That’s why you abandoned your family? To roll the dice on this soulmate nonsense?”

The concept of soulmates has been a running joke in the Bluth family. Buster’s soulmate is Lucille Bluth’s social rival and neighbor, Lucille Austero, which is a whole mess of Oedipal issues none of them want to touch; Lindsay settled for Tobias Fünke, a psychoanalyst-therapist and wannabe actor, who Lindsay married to piss off her parents; Gob’s parents were not soulmates, as evidenced by their rocky relationship; Michael, the only Bluth to meet his soulmate and find a shred of true happiness, ended up losing her to ovarian cancer.

Gob was simply presumed to be alone forever, as though he was an oversight in the bureaucracy of soulmate assignments. But adding color to his vision would be the grandest illusion of all. Gob is certain he’s only seeing half the world, like a magic-eye puzzle that won’t come into focus. 

And it wouldn’t hurt to have someone who loves him unconditionally either.

“That’s not — it’s not — I didn’t — ” Gob pauses, trying to get his thoughts together. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t understand? I spent my entire life searching for my soulmate, and did it make a lick of difference in the end?” Lucille takes another drink; Gob can hear her swallow over the line. “And then I had to watch my children stumble around in the dark looking for theirs. Only Michael succeeded, but then she went and died on him, so, you tell me, is that the life you want?”

Gob doesn’t answer. He feels pierced by her words, like a taxidermied butterfly pinned inside a felt box.

Lucille’s voice goes gentler now, her pale imitation of kindness. “Don’t take it personally, Gob. Bluths don’t get happy endings.”

 _It feels pretty personal_ , Gob thinks, sloshing the remaining gin inside the bottle; certainly there’s enough remaining for him to drown in.

“Anyway, the country club’s bachelorette auction is coming up,” Lucille says. “You should come and bid on your poor, pathetic sister. God knows she could use the self-esteem boost.”

“Yeah, well, the family jet was seized when Dad got arrested,” Gob says, throwing Lucille’s excuse back at her.

Lucille sighs like Gob has failed some kind of test. “Goodbye, Gob.”

On some level, Gob understands that Lucille is bitter because he and Michael left Newport Beach for Scranton, Pennsylvania, leaving her with the freeloader adult children of the family and her husband’s legal proclivities to deal with. Usually, Gob’s selfish enough not to feel bad about the abandonment.

But sometimes the guilt creeps up on him. 

Gob finishes off the bottle. He’s about to call it a night when his phone rings again. He hesitates, assuming it’s Lucille again, but the caller ID displays his agent’s number. When he answers the call, his agent says, “Gobie, how’s my favorite client? Are you too much of a big-shot now to do a wedding?”

* * *

Jim doesn’t do weddings, especially a soulmate wedding.

Of course he’s happy for his boss, and the idea of a wildcard like Michael Scott finding his one-in-a-billion mate probably bodes well for Jim’s chances at happily-ever-after, but being surrounded by good cheer and well wishes only magnifies Jim’s inner frustration. 

Pam should have been the one. So what if she doesn’t bring color to his monochrome world? Who makes these goddamn rules anyway? There have to be happy, thriving couples who toss out the rulebook and live in greyscale bliss together. 

But Michael and Holly certainly aren’t one of those couples. They exude the kind of radiance only a pair of soulmates can, two worlds united in color. 

Jim can only wonder what that’s like. He has never truly seen himself, relying on the observations of soulmated DMV employees for the hair and eye colors recorded on his Pennsylvania state driver’s license. But ‘brown’ and ‘green’ are foreign words to someone who has never seen colors. 

At least the reception has an open bar. Jim knocks back a gin and tonic, swaying along as Michael and Holly dance to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.” Beside him, Dwight drops some small twisted shape into Jim’s glass. It hits the ice with an unceremonious tinkling sound. 

Jim looks up at him. It’s a little unsettling to see Dwight wearing a three-piece suit. “Thanks,” Jim says, dryly. 

“I tied it with my tongue,” Dwight says, and Jim realizes it’s a cherry stem. “For good luck. It’s a Schrute matrimonial tradition.”

Jim half-smiles, making a mental note to order a new drink as soon as possible. “Most people just toss a bouquet.”

“Schrute brides release a goat at the ceremony. Whoever catches it is the next to meet their soulmate.”

“You come from a long line of soulmate couples?”

“We’re currently on a two-hundred year streak,” Dwight says.

“The odds must be incredible,” Jim says, “that out of all the billions of people in the world, anyone ever meets their soulmate. Right? I mean, what if you’re destined to be with someone in Japan? Or Alaska? How would you ever meet them? Or what if you’re supposed to be with someone who isn’t even born yet?”

“My great-great-grandfather liked to say that fate will find a way.”

Jim doesn’t know if he believes that. One, because it’s a little too pat, and two, because Dwight’s great-great-grandfather also used to wear his pants backwards, according to Dwight, so maybe his age-old advice has credibility issues.

“Well, I hope he’s right,” Jim says instead.

Pam comes to him later, perhaps drawn to a moping Jim like a sailor to a siren song. She sits on the empty barstool beside him and picks up the tied cherry stem that Jim fished out of his glass before promptly ordering a fresh one. 

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Jim says. “It’s been in Dwight’s mouth.”

“Oh no!” Pam drops the stem and steals the damp napkin underneath Jim’s new drink to wipe her hands. “Gross.”

Jim laughs, wondering what the hell to say that won’t come out bitter or whiny. 

He wanted to make a deal with Pam — if in ten years neither of them had met their soulmate, they would say ‘screw it’ and get together — but Pam recently met her soulmate in Karen Filippelli, which has thrown a wrench in Jim’s ten-year-plan.

He’s happy for them too, really, but it seems like everyone he knows is paired up with their soulmate. It would be easier for Jim to name the co-workers who _haven’t_ met that special someone yet (Dwight, Andy, and maybe Creed? That guy is a frightening mystery, and the less Jim knows about him, the better). Even his immediate family are all paired up, save for his sister Larisa.

Jim looks at all the guests — all the couples — and something sour tips over in his belly. “Come with me?” he asks Pam, and she follows him out the back door of the convention center. The air is chilly for a late summer night, and they stand together in the parking lot, leaning against Jim’s car.

“Oh my God,” Pam giggles, pointing to the far end of the lot where a car with stairs attached is parked.

“Wow.” Jim chuckles. “Wonder what kind of dork drives that.” He doesn’t really mean that, just says it to make Pam laugh. Jim loves making her laugh, even though it’s always been easy.

He can feel the conversation slipping away from him. Their back-and-forth banter used to come so naturally, but since Pam and Karen met, Jim’s begun to feel like a third wheel.

“You think it’ll ever happen for me?” Jim asks, and apparently he’s going for whiny after all, but Pam’s the only person he feels comfortable talking with like this. And maybe he’s a little tipsy from the two gin and tonics he’s had so far.

“Of course,” Pam says, because it’s the polite thing to say.

“You can be honest. You think I should take some time off and see the world? What if my soulmate is thousands of miles away? I’ll never meet them unless I go looking.”

“I think you should do what feels right.”

“Very diplomatic.”

“Honestly, I can’t tell you what to do. The only reason I met Karen is because of the merger.” A few months ago, the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin absorbed the Stamford branch, and a handful of its employees came along for the ride. Karen was one of them, and she and Pam greeted each other like long lost friends. “But I didn’t actually _do_ anything.”

“You kept the same job for years,” Jim says. “Maybe you turned down a few opportunities so you’d be in the right place.”

Pam lifts an eyebrow. “You believe in fate?”

“I don’t know. I think people only call it fate in hindsight, when you can trace the path of every decision you made to bring you to that person. But the odds are so incredible, I guess it has to be fate. Otherwise… it’s just luck.” Jim stares at the night, watches headlights and tail lights disappear, watches traffic lights toggle between ‘stop’ and ‘caution’ and ‘go.’ The world moves on, but Jim feels stuck, standing still while life passes him by.

“I think I’m gonna head out soon,” he says.

“Jim, no.” Pam reaches for Jim’s hand and clasps it between her own. “At least stay for the magic show? Please?”

Only Michael Scott would hire a magician to perform at his wedding reception. “I don’t know,” Jim says. “Sounds too corny for me.”

Pam rolls her eyes like Jim is just the worst. “It’ll be fun.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.” He flashes her a fake smile, but he suspects she can read it too well.

Pam goes back inside, and Jim loiters by his car for a while, unwilling to make the full commitment to leave the party and go home. He’ll never meet his soulmate if he sticks around here. New York City is about two hours away. He should take a vacation. Over seven million people live in New York City, and that’s not counting the thousands of tourists who pop in every day. Maybe he’ll find his other half there.

He’s not expecting to hear “The Final Countdown” coming from inside the convention hall. Talk about a blast from the past. It’s the kind of song aliens will unearth in thousands of years, like dinosaur bones in an archaeological dig, and wonder what the hell humans were doing in the eighties to create this perfect encapsulation of synth-filled arena-rock cheese.

Jim’s been here long enough. He ought to head home and lick his wounds in the privacy of his own bedroom. He goes inside to grab his jacket as the song winds to a close. He takes a quick glance at the stage, mildly curious if the magician is a ‘professional’ or just one of Michael Scott’s weird friends who said he could “totally do card tricks, man.”

The stage is relatively simple, with a two-tier backdrop of bright lights in overlapping and parallel rows. There are overhead lights and floor lights, and a haze from what Jim assumes is a smoke machine. 

But the man at the center of it all takes Jim’s breath away. The magician, dressed in an embroidered suit and sandals (surprisingly not the most ostentatious outfit a wedding magician could wear), fans a handful of cards and makes them vanish with a flick of his wrist. The cards appear in his other hand. 

The crowd “oohs” and “ahhh”s. 

For his next trick, tendrils of light blossom from his palm, and the magician turns Jim’s world from grey to color. 

Jim drops his blazer, his hands and arms suddenly numb. Color spreads out from the center of Jim’s focus, beginning with the magician and extending out in bright ribbons. The colors of the neon lights behind the stage fill in, and the curtains on either side become what Jim has been told is the color red. 

Red. A color of passion, anger, blood, or so he’s heard.

The ribbons reach like fingers over the walls and the floor and ceiling. The guests’ colors are painted in. Michael has black hair, and Holly’s wearing a white dress, her blonde hair tied up in a conservative bun. 

And Pam... Her hair is a color Jim can’t quite put a name to (Honey? Amber?), but it has _color_ , everything has color, _holy fucking shit_. 

Jim doesn’t recall retrieving his dropped jacket and moving down the aisle of seats. His body seems to _float_ forward, as if he’s possessed by some magical force. He weaves past a sea of colorful humans and finds Dwight sitting at the end of a row near the stage. Dwight is enraptured, leaning forward in his chair as if he might absorb the magician’s secrets if he stares intently enough. 

“Dwight!” Jim whispers, crouching in the aisle beside his seat. 

Dwight holds Jim at bay with a hand, indicating his attention will not be disturbed until he’s damn good and ready. 

Onstage, the magician creates swirls of sparks and flames from his fingers that hang in the air like comet trails. 

“What do you want?” Dwight asks Jim in a whisper, still not looking away from the stage.

“Did his color trick work on you too?” 

“What are you talking about?”

Jim opens his mouth to explain, then stops himself. Until he figures out whether this is sleight of hand or something more, Jim doesn’t want Dwight privy to the details. “Never mind. It was probably just a prism or something.”

“For my next _illusion_ , I’ll need a volunteer,” the magician says, rolling what looks like an upright coffin onto the stage. The box is decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics and paintings of pharoahs (purple and red and gold, look at all the colors!). “Volunteer? Anybody? C’mon, it’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”

Jim stands up, completely forgetting where he is, and drawing up to his full height this close to the stage means the magician’s eyes find him. 

“How ‘bout you, guy?” the magician says before he really _sees_ Jim. Jim watches a look of terror cross the man’s face, as if the magician has just seen the ghost of a long-dead relative. His eyes go wide, worried creases fill the vast space of his forehead, and his mouth drops open in stunned shock. The mic clipped to his shirt collar barely manages to pick up his mumbled, “ _holy shit_.”

Dwight nudges Jim forward. “Make him disappear for good!” Dwight calls to the magician, and good-natured laughter from their coworkers follows. The stage backdrop blinks and sparkles in every color.

Jim finds that he’s shaking, his senses overwhelmed by all the new visual input. His body moves of its own accord, carrying him up the steps on the left side of the stage. When he gets to see the magician up close, there’s another burst of color, like someone cranked the saturation knob on a television set. The magician’s purple ensemble makes him look like the result of a three-way between Hugh Hefner, Prince, and Willy Wonka.

“Alright! What’s your name?” the magician asks him, bringing Jim to center stage.

“Jim.”

“Jim.” He says the name as though it’s been on the tip of his tongue all his life. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

Jim manages to shake his head no.

“Great! Step inside the Aztec Tomb, my friend, and prepare to disappear!”

Jim’s still trying to figure out what the hell’s going on when the magician shuts him inside the box. He panics, because part of him is still convinced the whole color vision thing is a trick, and when he gets out of the box his world will be in black and white again. The magician’s addressing the crowd, but everything is muffled, except Jim’s heartbeat thudding in his ears. Maybe he is a little claustrophobic.

Then the floor is moving under Jim’s feet, and he’s sinking underneath the stage. From above, Jim hears the crowd gasp in astonishment; the magician must have opened the box to reveal its emptiness. There are lights down here—not a lot, but enough—and Jim sees crewhands and the inner workings of the stage still in color. 

“Want me to bring him back?” the magician asks, and the audience cheers.

“No, we’re fine. He’s in a better place now,” Dwight says when the crowd falls silent in anticipation.

A stagehand cranks a lever, and Jim’s moving up now. It occurs to him he’s still holding his jacket, and he quickly sticks his arms inside. As long as he’s part of the show, he ought to jazz up his reappearance, like a costume change. 

The trap floor rises up and clicks into place. Jim waits a handful of seconds in the dark confines of the tomb before the magician’s swinging open the door to reveal him inside. The crowd bursts into applause.

When Jim finds an empty seat in the audience, he watches his soulmate work his magic.

* * *

After the show, Jim sneaks his way backstage — not that he has to do much _sneaking;_ this is a wedding magician’s gig at a Philadelphia convention center and not a Bruce Springsteen show at Madison Square Garden. But there is one persnickety security guy standing outside the door to what Jim presumes is the magician’s dressing room.

So Jim performs the tried and true art of ‘fake it ‘til you make it.’

“Jim Halpert. Here to see the Great and Powerful Oz.”

The guard’s glazed, unimpressed stare reminds Jim of Stanley. “You got a pass?”

Jim looks pained. “Ah, see, he gave me one, but, y’know, it disappeared. Magic.” He shrugs as if to say, _what can you do?_

The guard lifts a scrutinizing eyebrow. Jim considers adding something about how he was a volunteer in the magician’s act, but that would probably make him look desperate. 

Instead he says, “Why don’t you tell him Jim’s here? He’ll know who I am.”

For a moment, the guard looks as though he might call Jim’s bluff, but he just rolls his eyes and says, “Make it quick.”

Jim opens the door and steps inside. The magician, preening in front of the mirror, freezes when he sees Jim. 

Jim briefly wonders what to say; if this guy is his soulmate, they’ll end up together even if Jim embarrasses himself by saying something corny or stupid. Knowing it’s meant to be takes the pressure off of a killer first line, and Jim says, “I didn’t know you could make us greys see in color.”

“Oh, that?” The magician gives a nervous laugh. “Magic 101. So easy a baby could do it.”

So that’s how he’s going to play it, then?

“And yet you looked terrified when you saw me,” Jim says, trying to trap him in the lie. “We’ve never met before, so I couldn’t be some ex with an ax to grind. It’s almost like you started seeing in color when you looked at me.”

“I’ve made a huge mistake,” the magician mutters to himself. He rakes a hand through his brown hair (Jim’s still over the fucking moon that he can see in color) and starts pacing the tiny room.

“Wait, don’t freak out. Maybe we could just...” Jim doesn’t know, because this has never happened to him before. “This has to mean something, right?”

_Fate will find a way._

And it seems that fate has, because this magic man has found Jim against all odds. 

“We’re soulmates,” the magician says, rubbing a hand over his thin mouth like he wants to scrub the word out of it. 

Jim offers a hand. He supposes they ought to know each other’s names. “Jim Halpert.”

The magician hesitates, like shaking Jim’s hand might lock him in to some sort of pact with the devil. But eventually he shakes and says, “Gob Bluth.”

“Job? Like in the Bible?”

“Yes, God is certainly testing me,” he says with a dark laugh.

* * *

They go to a bar a few blocks down from the convention center, because if this guy really is Jim’s soulmate, he’d prefer not to have his first impression ruined by Dwight’s eccentricity or Michael’s bad jokes. Or Andy’s _everything_.

“So how does one become a magician anyway?” Jim asks, sitting across from Gob in a corner booth. “Do you have to join some kind of union?”

“Magic isn’t something you learn, Jim. It’s something you’re born with.”

“Fair enough. A magician ought to keep some secrets. I guess you’ve never done anything like this before. With a soulmate, I mean.”

“Yeah, it’s awkward, huh? Almost like this whole soulmate thing is completely arbitrary, right?”

“Oh, you know any happy non-soulmate couples?” Jim doesn’t mean for that to sound passive-aggressive. It just does, and he wishes he could take it back.

Gob appears to be thinking about this. His mouth pulls into a grimace. “No.”

“Then maybe we should try to make this work. Pretend we’re on a blind date set up by the universe.” 

“Alright, Universe, I’ll play your little game.” Gob fixes Jim with a curious gaze. His eyes are a green million miles, to borrow a turn of phrase from the Captain Beefheart song Jim’s dad always liked. “So, Jimbo, what’s your story? What mindless corporate nine-to-five are you a slave to?”

“I’m a sales rep at Dunder Mifflin,” Jim says, only now realizing the monotony of his life. He should probably dress up his job description, but if they’re soulmates, Gob won’t care that Jim is about as interesting as wet paper. 

“So do you sell mufflers or mittens?”

“Both. And muffins.” A twitch of a smile, and Gob reciprocates.

“What about your family? Any scandals? Money laundering, embezzlement, infidelity, light treason?”

Jim blinks. “No. No. My family is… normal. Is that — what’s your family like?”

“I don’t have a family.”

Now there’s a gut punch, and Jim raises his eyebrows, wondering if he looks even half as stunned as he feels. “No family? Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Horrible accident. Very tragic,” Gob says with a wave of his hand, like none of it matters. He glances at the menu lying on the table. “You want nachos?”

* * *

Gob stumbles into Michael Bluth’s house later that night.

Michael’s sitting at the kitchen table, typing something on his laptop. Probably spreadsheets or whatever the hell real estate developers like Michael do. He looks up when Gob slinks in. “You’re home in one piece and not arrested,” Michael says. “I assume you had a good show?”

Gob shows off his wad of cash. “You bet your fifteen-hundred sweet green buckaroonies.”

“Fifteen-hundred? That is a _steep_ appearance fee.” Michael glances at his laptop, then looks back at Gob. “Since when can you see colors?”

“Since tonight.” 

“You met your soulmate? You _?_ ”

Gob grins, planting his hands on the table and staring at Michael. It’s the first time he’s seen any of his family in color, and it’s so fucking nice to finally see things they way they’re meant to be seen. “How much money does Mom owe you? I know you made a bet on it.”

“No, Lindsay made the bet. I’ve always been in your corner, Gob. What’s your soulmate like?”

Gob opens the fridge and drinks some orange juice from the carton; Michael makes a face. “He’s… a guy. Nice. Cute. Tall. Normal.”

“Those are” — Michael pauses, nods — ”valuable qualities.”

“His name is Jim, and he makes mifflins.”

“Mifflins?”

“Muffins and mittens.”

“Right.” Michael says nothing for a moment, probably debating whether Gob’s fucking with him. “Well, if you want to bring him over—”

“No!” Gob points an accusing finger at Michael. “This is my _soulmate_ , Michael. My one-in-a-billion chance at happiness, and if anyone’s going to screw it up, it’s gonna be me. And don’t you dare tell anyone. Not even George Michael,” Gob continues. Michael’s teenage son lives with them, and while there’s nothing really wrong with George Michael, Gob doesn’t trust him not to blab, especially if Lucille tries to pump him for information.

The thought of this news getting back to the rest of the family makes Gob’s insides tremble. Lindsay would make drunken passes at Jim and probably try to sleep with him to spite Tobias; Buster would be friendly and cordial, clapping Jim on the shoulder with his hook hand and sending him to the emergency room; Tobias would make uncomfortable, innuendo-laden conversation; George Senior would criticize Jim for not being a CEO yet, as though a man imprisoned for fraud has any room to talk on the subject of financial success.

Gob has always been the Bluths’ historically most useless child, and Lucille would destroy Gob’s chance at love under the guise of motherly warmth, a warmth she has never had. She would tear poor, pretty Jim Halpert apart with thinly-veiled criticisms and digs at Gob.

Michael and Gob share a look, as though Michael understands what it means for Gob to share this secret with him. “I won’t. I wouldn’t. As far as they’re concerned, you’re as lonely as ever.”

“Thanks, Mikey.”

In bed, Gob thinks back to his parting with Jim tonight. He walked Jim back to the convention center where the reception was winding down. Jim looked at him with eager eyes so full of hope, like he expected the night to end with a kiss. Gob didn’t trust himself with that yet. 

Instead, Gob drew out a business card from the sleeve of his shirt, holding it between his index and middle fingers. Two tongues of blue flame (oh, how glad he was to finally see the colors of his magic!) emerged from his fingers and engulfed the card.

Jim’s face glowed with reverence, his green eyes bright and bewildered at Gob’s command of magic. 

“Abracadabra,” Gob said as the card became a sheet of ash trickling between his fingers. 

Jim grinned and said, “I, uh, I hope you have another one of those. I’d really like your number.”

* * *

The Dunder Mifflin office is a kaleidoscope of colors. Jim’s actually happy to be back, because Michael Scott is on his honeymoon with Holly, and Jim can see all of the world’s hues and tints. It’s like being reborn and rediscovering a world he thought he knew.

“There’s something different about you,” Pam says to him in the break room, gazing at him like he’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. 

Jim presses his lips together, trying to hold back a grin. Pam’s eyes are green and bewitching. “You look good in pink,” he says, lowering his voice. “It matches your blush.”

Pam almost steps back to put distance between herself and his flirtation, until she realizes. “You met the one?” she whisper-shouts.

If someone from work has to know, it’s good that it’s Pam. She was the first person he wanted to tell anyway, and he looked for her at the reception after his “date” with Gob, but she and Karen had already left by then.

“I can’t stop smiling,” Jim says. “I feel like an idiot. My face hurts.”

“When did this happen?”

“This weekend.” Jim can afford to keep some of the details to himself for a bit.

“Who is it? What are they like?”

“He’s… interesting. I like him, but… I always thought I’d meet my soulmate and it would be love at first sight, y’know? But it wasn’t like that for me. I’m really glad I met him, and I want to keep seeing him, but I’m kind of bummed sparks didn’t fly.”

 _He’s a magician. Sparks are dangerous_ , Jim thinks, and he has to bite down on a laugh.

Soulmates mean different things to different people, but each soulmated match is perfect for each other. Whether their needs are romantic, sexual, platonic, or a mix of all three depends on the participants, but there are no mistakes made in matches. Jim will have to find in Gob what he doesn’t know he needs.

“Love at first sight isn’t a real thing, Jim,” Pam explains. “You can be attracted to someone when you first meet, but love comes later when you actually get to know them.”

“Great, so the sparks will come eventually. They have to, right? We’re soulmates.” It’s so weird to hear himself say that about another person. Finally. “And, hey, it’s probably a no-brainer, but don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Pam nods energetically and mimes zipping her mouth and throwing away the key. “I guess that means no double-dates?”

Jim considers this. It might be beneficial to have a third party to bounce off of, and Pam is reliably normal, not a chaotic wildcard like Michael Scott. Karen is pleasant and won’t make trouble. They’re the best potential couple to double-date with; Kelly and Ryan might be a bit too much for Gob’s first taste of Jim’s social circle. 

“Well, hold on, I think you’ve got something there, Beesly,” Jim says.


	2. fate up against your will

Jim shows up at the Bluth household on Friday night. Michael and George Michael are out at the movies, so it looks like Gob owns the place. Jim marvels at the house when Gob answers the door.

“Nice place,” Jim says, and while he appraises the house, Gob appraises him. Jim looks like a cute little office drone in a white collared shirt and tie, though those coal-grey slacks do nothing for his ass. That doesn’t stop Gob from taking a peek when he gets a chance.

“The perks of a magician’s salary,” Gob says. Wanting to skirt the subject of his living arrangements, he adds, “So what’s for dinner?”

“Chicken pot pie, I think. Pam and Karen only know, like, three recipes between them, so there’s a thirty-three percent chance I’m right.” Jim notices the stair car parked in the driveway. “Oh, that’s yours?”

The stair car is exactly what it sounds like: a car with stairs. Emblazoned with the Bluth Company logo, it existed alongside the company jet; after the jet was sold to help with the company’s financial woes, Gob took the stair car when no one else would. Gob has an odd fondness for the car, since it helped him make the cross-country drive from California to Pennsylvania. 

“Yeah, I get a lot of hop-ons,” Gob says.

Jim gives him a mischievous look. His lips are florid and slender, and Gob wonders what they taste like. “You actually drive that?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” Gob grumbles, embarrassed, but that seems to satisfy Jim, perhaps on account of the whole ‘my family’s dead’ thing. Sometimes Gob forgets his own fiction.

Pam greets them when they arrive at her apartment. “You must be Gob! It’s so nice to meet you!”

Gob notices a shared glance between Pam and Jim as he steps inside, something private and flirtatious. What’s that about? Did they have a thing? _Do_ they have a thing? Should Gob be worried?

“Gob, this is Karen,” Pam says, introducing him to a slim, petite brunette watching TV on the couch. “Hon, this is Gob, Jim’s soulmate.”

The word ‘soulmate’ makes Karen perk up. Maybe she’s also considered if Jim and Pam have a _thing_ going on. “So nice to meet you, Gob!”

The table is already set with four places and the casserole dish containing the pot pie. Pam and Karen sit on one side of the table, while Jim and Gob take up seats on the other side. The apartment is small, with a dining room and table that barely seats four people comfortably. Karen’s drinking a Coke. Pam sips iced tea, while Jim opts for water. Gob wonders if they have any liquor.

“So how did you guys meet?” Pam asks.

Jim and Gob exchange a look, as if unsure whether they want to tell the truth or who gets to speak it. Jim finally says, “Gob was the magician at Michael and Holly’s wedding.”

Pam’s smile lights up her face. “Oh my gosh! I thought you looked familiar! Your act was amazing! How do you do it?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Gob replies, and he loves that he gets to say that.

“It’s like pro wrestling, right?” Karen asks. “A bunch of fancy tricks?”

Gob scowls, feeling nettled. As a matter of fact, his magic is the realest thing about him, the only benefit of being born to non-soulmate parents. “They’re fancy _illusions_.”

“Hypothetically,” Karen starts, somewhat playful, “could you pull some kind of tri— illusion off that makes him see color?” She points at Jim with a pearly fingernail.

“I wondered that too,” Jim says, “but I think this is the real deal.”

“Maybe the Tony Wonders of the world can make the greys see color, but not me,” says Gob. 

Tony Wonder was Gob’s idol as an aspiring magician. Once he discovered his gift for illusions and magic, he studied Tony’s repertoire, trying to figure out if Tony was born with the same innate gift Gob has. 

“So where did Jim go when he disappeared in the Aztec Tomb?” Karen asks Gob.

“Can’t tell you,” Gob says, his mouth half-full. “Trade secrets.”

Karen looks at Jim, trying to press him for an answer.

Jim shakes his head. “He’s got to keep some mystery around his illusions. And you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement when you get your magician’s license, or else they don’t let you in the club.”

Gob could just kiss Jim right now, mostly for defending his profession, but also because Jim used the word ‘illusions’ without any hiccups. Maybe it’s semantics, but the distinction is important to Gob, and Jim has already picked up on that. Even now, Dad still calls them tricks, mostly to spite Gob.

“Gob, that’s an interesting name,” says Karen. “Are your parents religious?”

The idea of the Bluths worshipping anything other than their own self-proclaimed superiority amuses Gob. “Far from it. I’m named after my father — George Oscar Bluth — but I wanted my own identity. Everyone else in the family got their own names. So why not me?”

“Oh, it’s your initials! I get it!” Pam says, delighted. She doesn’t point out that he’s taking liberties with the pronunciation — technically, it should be ‘gob,’ as in ‘a gob of phlegm someone coughed onto a $3,500 suit’ because _that_ summarizes Gob Bluth like nothing else. “Are you from Scranton?”

“I’m from Orange County, actually. California. Newport Beach, if you really want to get specific.” 

“How’d you end up here?” Jim wonders, and Gob senses prying curiosity beneath his sweet tone. “I mean, New York City isn’t too far, and you’re kind of a big-shot. Wouldn’t it make more sense to go there?”

Gob’s going to lean into the ‘dead family’ bit, so he can’t be honest. “I _was_ headed for New York, but my car broke down here, and I chose to see it as a sign.” Jim’s seen the star car; maybe he’ll buy that. “But the reason I left in the first place? My family died, and I needed a fresh start.”

Pam gasps. “Oh my God.”

“Oh no. I’m so sorry,” says Karen.

“Yeah, it was tragic. Carbon monoxide poisoning at my mom’s penthouse. It was her 65th birthday party,” Gob says. “I only survived because I left early.” He uses their stricken silence to take another bite. “Which one of you lovely ladies is responsible for this fantastic pot pie?”

So he’s not great with segues.

Pam blinks as if coming back to reality. “That would be me. I’m glad you like it. It’s a family recipe.”

“Your parents liked to cook?”

“My mom does.”

“My mother never cooked for us. Except once, when her housekeeper died. She gave us cereal in an ashtray,” Gob says.

“Oh my God,” Karen murmurs.

“Sorry. Was that a little too dark for the room?”

“Maybe just a bit,” Jim says.

“God, I need a drink,” says Gob.

The only booze in the house is Pam’s boxed wine. It’s rosé, but Gob doesn’t care, guzzling down one glass and promptly filling another. “So, Pam. Karen. What’s your deal?”

“We, um, we’re soulmates,” Pam says, trying and failing not to smile when she says it. “We met at work when Dunder Mifflin had a merger. I worked at Scranton, and she was from Stamford.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Karen says. “I was nervous and scared about working at a whole new place, and almost as soon as I walked in and looked at the cute receptionist, everything’s in color and it’s just… great.”

Gob remembers that same feeling when Jim looked at him from the aisle of the magic show. “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

After dinner, Karen and Jim take the dishes into the kitchen while Pam keeps Gob busy with questions. “How’d you get into magic? Do you have side gigs, or does it pay well on its own?”

“It’s pretty lucrative,” Gob says. “I started learning magic when I was about eight. My mother gave me a magic set for my birthday and said, ‘See if you can make yourself disappear.’”

Pam’s smile falls. “That’s horrible.”

“Oh, I don’t hold it against her. She was on her sixth martini of the morning when she said it.” Gob kicks back the rest of the wine, already feeling a little unsteady.

His attention is drawn to murmured conversation from the kitchen. He hears Jim and Karen’s voices, and while he can’t be certain they’re talking about him, it’s likely, right? Jim brings over this weird oversharing magician he claims is his soulmate, and Karen can’t help but crack a few jokes at Gob’s expense. In the Bluth household, it wasn’t uncommon for Gob to hear cruelties about himself while his parents bickered behind closed doors; in the later years of Gob’s adolescence, these biting comments were spoken out in the open.

Gob feels frozen in place, as though red lights are flashing on some internal control panel. He realizes Pam is waiting for him to continue. “Anyway, I found I had the knack for it. Like any art, you’ve either got it or you don’t. After high school, I did a bunch of shows in Orange County magic parlors, then I found a home in the Gothic Castle. I did pretty well for myself, then I started doing shows in Phoenix—”

He pauses, trying to concentrate on Jim and Karen’s conversation.

“… it was a mistake,” he hears Jim say, and that’s pretty much all the proof Gob needs that this conversation is indeed about him. _It’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you, you see._

Gob swallows and lifts his empty glass. His soul feels hot and swollen, like a snakebite filled with venom. “Be a dear and top me off, would you?” That’s Lucille talking, and Gob wants to wash the words down however he can.

Pam gives him a questioning look.

“’S’okay, Michael’s driving me home.”

“Who’s Michael?” Pam asks, and Gob realizes he’s misspoken.

“Fuck.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “You know I meant Jim. I’m just… Michael was my brother.”

Pam probably assumes Gob is slightly drunk, and that talking about his family must have uprooted some long-buried part of him that’s still grieving. Except you can’t really mourn someone who isn’t dead, can you?

“I’m sorry about your family,” Pam says, and this seems to speak to something deeper inside Gob. She doesn’t refill his glass, but Gob doesn’t care.

When Jim and Karen return, Gob is out of his seat. “Jim, you got a minute?” Before Jim can say yes or no, Gob’s dragging him by the arm toward the doors to the back porch. “I want to ask you something,” Gob says sweetly to mask the panic building inside of him.

Jim shuts the sliding glass doors behind them and jams his hands into his pockets. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Gob scoffs like Jim’s being ridiculous. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering what you guys were talking about in there. It sounded pretty heated.”

It didn’t sound heated, but if Gob pretends he’s asking out of concern for Jim’s well-being, he might get an honest answer.

“You weren’t — you weren’t talking about me, were you?” Gob says. “Making a joke or two about the cosmic misfile of us as soulmates?” He tries to laugh, to show Jim that he can be a good sport about it, but the sound is strained even in his own ears, and he knows Jim hears it too. So he keeps talking to cover it up. “Except destiny doesn’t make mistakes, so you’re probably wondering what you did in a past life to deserve this, huh?”

Gob realizes too late that Jim might take that last part as an insult rather than the semi-compliment it was intended to be.

“Gob, no. I’m not… Whatever you heard, it wasn’t about you. We’re all friends here.”

Gob has never heard ‘we’re all friends here’ uttered in a situation where they are all, in fact, friends. He’s calling bullshit, and even if Jim is right, Gob’s first instinct is always to dig himself deeper into whatever hole he’s found himself in. “Yeah? Well, it doesn’t feel that way.”

_Great job, idiot. You always do this: push people away when they try to know you. This guy’s the only chance you’ve got at not being miserable, so maybe try not to fuck it up?_

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Gob says with a sigh. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

Jim seems to understand that something in Gob’s past has colored his perception like blood in the water. “It’s okay. Whatever you heard…” Jim looks like a kid with his hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar, as if what he’s about to say next is something Gob might hate him for. “A while back, our office had this party. Pam and Karen hadn’t met yet, and I thought maybe…” He blinks rapidly, glancing off at the neighboring building so he doesn’t have to meet Gob’s gaze. “I know she’s not my soulmate, and I’m not hers, and it was stupid to even say anything, but…”

A new emotion creeps through Gob’s paranoia and despair: sympathy. “But what?”

“I confided in someone that I had feelings for Pam,” Jim admits. “I guess word got back to Karen somehow, and she chose this moment to ask me about it. So in there, I was telling her the whole thing was a mistake, and I’ve found my soulmate, so she won’t have to worry about me and Pam.”

Gob’s so fucking glad that Jim wasn’t talking about him. Maybe that’s residual trauma from overhearing his mother casually refer to him as a mistake.

“I just wanted to be with someone,” Jim says softly, his eyes glistening. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I wanted to find my person so bad. I thought maybe Pam and I could make it work if we liked each other enough.” He forces out a weak chuckle. “Stupid, right? There are probably millions of failed mismatches, but we were gonna be the one that worked?” 

Gob pulls a magic handkerchief from inside his sleeve and offers it to Jim. Jim laughs a soft, enchanted sound. “You dodged a bullet,” Gob says as Jim wipes his face with the cloth. “My parents weren’t soulmates, and they made me and my siblings miserable over it. My dad used to egg me and Michael into fighting, record it, and sell the tapes. He called them ‘Boyfights.’ Also, he liked to hire a one-armed man to teach us lessons by routinely scaring the shit out of us. And my mother… She drank too much and loved too little. And she made it very clear I’m the member of the family nobody likes. So… it’s good you didn’t settle.”

“It’s good for you too,” Jim says with a shy smile, and Gob feels a hot flush creep up his neck.

* * *

Gob’s drinking at the wet bar when Michael and George Michael arrive back home. “Is your date here?” Michael asks, peering into the living room.

“Michael, why would I bring my soulmate home to meet my family?”

“Point taken.”

“Besides, I already told him you’re all dead.”

“Aw,” George Michael says, sounding hurt. “Even me?”

Gob stares at his tiny glass of bourbon. “Well, I didn’t get into specifics about _who_ —”

“Just out of curiosity, how did we die?” Michael asks.

“Carbon monoxide poisoning at Mom’s 65th.”

“You really thought that one out, didn’t you?”

Gob nods and tosses back the drink. “I gotta tell you, treating Mom and Dad like they’re dead is doing wonders for me. You should try it.”

“You know, I’d love to, but Mom’s daily phone calls sort of break the illusion.”

“She calls you? Does she ever ask about me?”

“All the time,” Michael says, and Gob knows a polite lie when he hears one, especially from Michael. 

Gob refills his glass, emptying the remainder of the Jim Beam bottle. _Jim_. Gob’s stomach flutters when he remembers Jim’s coy little smiles. “You’re out of bourbon.”

“Fine. I’ll pick up another bottle, and you can guzzle your way through it next Friday night when you invite your soulmate over for dinner,” Michael says with a defiant stare, knowing Gob will back down.

“Here? With you guys?”

“That’s the idea. Gob, you can’t lie to him forever. And it’s not like you’re asking him to meet Mom or Dad or even Buster.”

“What’s wrong with Uncle Buster?” George Michael asks.

Gob shakes his head. “No way.”

“But if he’s your soulmate, it’s meant to be, right?” George Michael says. “So nothing will scare him off ‘cause you’re destined to be together.”

That sounds nice on the surface, and maybe it makes sense to a young idealist like George Michael, but Gob has never seen a healthy relationship play out in front of him. George Michael had the benefit of watching his dad and Tracey develop a happy relationship model for him, but she died about six years ago, so finding your soulmate apparently doesn’t guarantee a happily-ever-after. It would be Gob’s luck to have Jim accept him wholeheartedly, only for Jim to get hit by a car while crossing the street on his lunch break.

_You don’t deserve nice things, Gob_ , he hears his mother say.

“Is that how it works?” Gob asks, irritated that they’re ganging up on him. “Alright, how many soulmates have _you_ met?”

“Just the one,” George Michael says, blushing. “Maeby.”

“Maeby? Your cousin?” 

“She’s not really my cousin,” George Michael mumbles. “Not, like, biologically.”

He could be right (according to Lucille, the family spent a pretty penny trying to get Lindsay a baby), but it’s still another feather in the cap of how fucked up this family is. 

Gob downs the rest of his drink and slams the glass onto the counter with a loud clink. “And _that_ is why I’m not bringing Jim anywhere near another Bluth. Mark my words, Michael. _Never_.”

“Then you might want to think about getting your own place, huh?” Michael says simply.

Gob storms upstairs, shouting, “Maybe I will!”

* * *

He does. It’s a small, cramped apartment with nowhere near the amount of square footage he’s used to from the Seawind unit back in Orange County, the Bluth beach house, or even his mother’s penthouse. He barely has any possessions to fill the place up — just a closet full of clothes, a phone, a fully-stocked liquor cabinet, three large boxes of assorted junk, and a king-size mattress. It’s not like he could store very much when he was living in Michael’s attic anyway.

Michael stops over one afternoon and brings some miscellaneous useful items: flatware, dishes, an old lamp Gob recognizes from the attic, and various linens. 

In the interim of moving in, Gob and Jim go on dates at bars and movie theaters, trying to polish the proverbial turd of their relationship. It’s not that they don’t get along or enjoy each other’s company, but if Gob’s vision hadn’t blossomed into glorious color when he saw Jim, would he even bother with the guy otherwise? Jim’s really cute, sure, but Gob’s been dumped by plenty of attractive people.

_He’s your soulmate, though. Can’t argue with destiny, right?_

And sometimes it does feel meant to be, or at least that it _could_ be, during the little glimpses of comfortable intimacy: Gob tossing popcorn at Jim when Jim nerds out about an inaccuracy in the movie they’re watching, or Jim flirtatiously challenging Gob to a game of pool at a bar (”I’m gonna whip your ass, Bluth,” and then Gob got him blushing with, “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Jimothy.”). Or even the eager expectation on Jim’s face when their nights come to a close, as if anticipating a goodnight kiss. It’s something Gob has to hold himself back from giving, fearful of misinterpreting their soulmate connection. Maybe they’re not meant to be together romantically, but instead as platonic soulmates.

* * *

“I, uh, got an apartment,” Gob tells Jim over the phone one evening. “If you wanna come over sometime.”

“I thought you lived in a house.”

“It wasn’t _mine_. I was just rooming with a friend, and, well, y’know, creative differences.”

Gob warns Jim that he hasn’t finished unpacking, so when Jim shows up one Saturday night, he brings a case of soda and a bottle of red wine. “Consider it a housewarming gift,” Jim says, setting the latter on the kitchen counter next to a warm box of pizza; the smell of peppers and melted cheese makes his mouth water. “I wasn’t really sure what else to get you. Pam suggested a vase, or a potted plant, or a candle, but I don’t think those are really your style.”

Gob seems to find it sweet that Jim discussed the subject of his housewarming gift with someone. “I could use a TV, if you’re in the giving mood.”

“That’s why I brought this.” Jim opens the messenger bag slung over his shoulder to reveal his laptop computer.

Gob doesn’t own a couch or a proper bedframe, so they sit on his mattress, eating and drinking while they watch _Office Space_ on Jim’s laptop screen.

“I work with a guy like that,” Jim says, thinking of Dwight when the bespectacled Milton appears.

Gob laughs. “He kind of reminds me of my youngest brother Buster.”

“How’s that?”

“Mostly the voice and the glasses. But he’s kind of got the same meek, pushover vibe that Buster has.”

Jim would hardly call Dwight a pushover, but there is a shared level of ignorance and naïvete between Dwight and Milton.

“Is it hard for you to talk about them?” Jim doesn’t want to push if family is a sore subject for Gob. Although if Gob brings it up, that means it’s fair game, right? 

“It’s — whatever,” Gob says dismissively before draining his wine glass. He skipped over the Cokes and went straight for the Merlot, though Jim can’t fault him for it; red wine and pizza make a great pair. “My parents were the worst, and I’m glad they’re dead. My siblings…” A morose expression crosses his face. “That’s a little more complicated. But it doesn’t hurt or anything. You can ask whatever you want.”

Jim can’t imagine how bad Gob’s family life must have been for their loss not to hurt. As much as his brothers drive him crazy, Jim would be devastated if something happened to them. And losing his parents? Jim can’t even let his brain go there without immediately rejecting the idea.

But if Jim’s parents were awful in the ways Gob described his own (and likely in ways he’s keeping close to his chest)? That’s a psychological door Jim refuses to open, or even peer through the keyhole. 

Jim covers Gob’s hand with his own. Gob’s skin is warm, and Jim wonders what it might feel like to touch more of him.

After the movie, Gob brings in the bottle of wine. Jim can’t be bothered to find a glass, so he pours the wine into his empty Coke can. If he wants to try something with Gob tonight, he’ll need a little liquid courage. He’s been thinking about kissing Gob since they met, because Gob’s mouth is a quirky thing of wonder, but Jim has never kissed anyone, and he doesn’t want to screw it up. 

Jim plugs his laptop into the nearby wall outlet and stretches out, balancing the computer on his thighs. “You should think about getting some furniture,” he says, typing in the address of a home furnishings website. “Unless you like sitting on the floor.” His fingers pause over the keys as the page loads. “Did you have furniture at your old place?”

“I’m kind of a minimalist,” Gob says. “So often we become slaves to our possessions. I think Buddha said that once. No, wait, I read it in a fortune cookie.”

“We’ll start small, then.” Jim opens the page for bedroom furniture and pulls up a long thumbnailed list of bedframes. There’s a round bed that Jim thinks is absolutely ridiculous, and of course that’s the one Gob points to and says, “Yes. I love it.”

Jim almost chokes on his mouthful of wine. “Are you serious? It’s a thousand dollars. Don’t spend that much on a bed.”

“Jim, you spend a third of your life in bed. Maybe more if you’re lucky,” Gob says, nudging Jim with his elbow.

“But you’d have to buy a round mattress too. Who even makes those? And there’s no headboard to grab onto.” Jim lifts an eyebrow, hoping the mental image of fucking him might persuade Gob to go with something more standard.

A flush covers Gob’s cheeks. “Point taken,” he says curtly, swallowing another gulp of wine.

There’s no sense in buying a couch yet if Gob doesn’t have a TV, and while he needs plenty of other furniture, the bed is of utmost importance. Gob can probably find the rest at a yard sale or a discount store. Jim finishes his wine while he helps Gob picks out a more modest, affordable bedframe. But Gob balks when Jim goes to click ‘pay now.’

“We’re not really buying this, are we?” Gob asks, and Jim is a little flattered at the use of ‘we,’ like Gob views them as a couple already. “My credit card is maxed out, and apparently you have to pay that money back before they give you more,” Gob says, rolling his eyes as if this is unreasonable.

“Did you really not know that?”

“You think my parents ever taught us how to manage money? Michael’s the only one who learned, probably because he was _the favorite._ Or maybe he was just smarter than all of us put together and knew he couldn’t rely on Mommy and Daddy’s wealth forever.” There’s a lot of bitterness in Gob’s words and tone, though Jim can’t blame him.

“Your parents were rich?”

“Oh, they were loaded. But towards the end…” Gob shakes his head, as if unwilling to go there. “If you’re thinking I made out like a king on their life insurance, I’ve got some magic beans to sell you.”

Jim wonders what happened to Gob’s parents’ estate. Maybe Gob hired someone to handle it, and any financial benefits from his parents’ deaths went straight into the pockets of an arbiter.

“What kind of magic beans?” Jim asks. “Are we talking beanstalk magic or — I guess that’s the only kind.” He closes his laptop and sets it on the floor.

“Any beans are magic if I’m holding ‘em,” Gob says. He holds out his arm and opens his closed fist. Inside are three small, pale green beans. Wispy stalks begin to grow from their centers, rising almost six inches in the air. The green tendrils intertwine with each other to form a mega-stalk. Gob closes his fist, and the stalk disintegrates into fairy dust.

“Holy crap,” Jim says. How did Gob manage that one? The obvious answer is some sort of trick hologram device hidden up his sleeve, but Gob’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, making that method somewhat of an impossibility. Jim’s momentarily distracted by Gob’s arms, caught in the fantasy of skimming his hands over them. 

“You know I can’t reveal my secrets, Jim.” Gob’s voice is a low, rough caress, and Jim shivers.

“We have ways of making you talk,” Jim volleys back, doing his best Bond villain impersonation. 

“By tying me up? You’ve seen my act. Ropes and cuffs can’t hold me. I’m a master escape artist.”

Now Jim’s thinking about using ropes and handcuffs on Gob in other, sexier situations. And maybe the wine has stuffed Jim’s fear of vulnerability into some internal closet, because he considers crawling on top of Gob and making out with him. It would be easy enough, but it would also allow for kissing to grow legs and turn into something more. 

Jim leans in close enough to feel the tickle of Gob’s breath against his lips. “Are you finally gonna kiss me or keep waiting for me to do it?” Gob murmurs.

Jim kisses the smirk off Gob’s mouth, tasting the wine on his tongue, feeling the rough scrape of early stubble, smelling the cologne lingering at his throat. Gob slips his fingers through Jim’s hair and pulls him closer. A whole-body shiver comes over Jim. His brain blue-screens like a faulty computer, unable to handle these new, overwhelming sensations.

“You okay?” Gob’s hands have come to rest on the sides of Jim’s face, and Jim doesn’t know if Gob’s hands are warm or if his own cheeks are burning.

“I — I’ve never” — _no, don’t tell him that, dumbass_ — ”that was a lot at once,” Jim sputters, catching his breath.

“And I didn’t even use tongue,” Gob says before sitting up and dragging Jim in for another kiss. Clearly, Gob knows what he’s doing: how to tilt his head, the right amount of pressure to use, how to lick at Jim’s bottom lip to gain access to his mouth. Even the way Gob’s fingers play in Jim’s hair seems like a skill honed over years of practice. 

Jim moans, and the hum of that sound against Gob’s mouth encourages him to slide a hand underneath Jim’s shirt. Jim responds by skimming his hands over Gob’s forearms, and his skin is as hot as Jim feels. Gob’s fingers are individual lines of heat rising up Jim’s stomach and ribcage. Gob’s touch is overwhelming; the heat and texture of him fill the world, and Jim moans a helpless noise over Gob’s lips.

Already, Jim is on the verge of an embarrassingly early orgasm. Is this overstimulation par for the course with soulmates, or is Jim just touched-starved? He should pull away right now if he doesn’t want to come in his pants, but it’s too dizzying, too _good_ to stop now, and Gob’s mouthing at his jaw and sucking a bruise into Jim’s neck that he’ll have a hell of a time explaining at work come Monday morning. Jim’s heart is sprinting in his chest, so when Gob trails his hand down Jim’s stomach to the edge of his jeans, Jim can’t help but come apart with a frenzied little gasp. His fingers dig into Gob’s arms, as if holding onto Gob will prevent Jim from floating away. 

“Did I get you off just from kissing?” Gob asks with a kind laugh.

“No.” Jim blushes, moving away as if he means to escape. “Maybe. Just a little. Give me a second.” He can’t sink into the mattress and disappear, so he does the next best thing and retreats to the bathroom. Gob allows Jim a few requisite moments to clean himself up, which Jim does in a hurry. Then he splashes water on his face and tells his reflection to get his shit together.

“Soulmate. He’s your soulmate,” Jim murmurs as a reminder that Gob isn’t going to leave him over this. 

“Jim?” Gob asks through the door after a minute or two. “I guess you’ve never done this before.”

“You got any of those smoke-bomb pellets I can use to disappear?”

“C’mon. It’s not a big deal. What’s a little premature ejaculation between soulmates anyway?”

Gob’s taking this so well it inspires Jim to open the door, instead of trying to escape through the bathroom vent. Gob gazes at Jim, looking handsome and helpless and weirdly innocent, and it’s the latter that pushes Jim to lower an emotional wall. “You’re right, though. I’ve never… I mean, I thought it was kind of pointless to be with someone who wasn’t your soulmate.”

“Can’t relate.”

Jim’s not surprised. “As I got older, I got jaded and thought I’d never find you. But I guess I still had a sliver of hope that I would. I’m glad we found each other.”

“Me too,” Gob says.

Later, when Gob is fast asleep on the other side of the bed, Jim opens the laptop and orders a cheap bedframe. It’s only a couple hundred bucks; he doesn’t mind footing the bill.

* * *

Things slow down for a few weeks. When the bed arrives, Jim stops by Gob’s apartment after work and helps him put it together, but Gob thinks it’s just an excuse to make out on the finished bed, which he’s totally fine with. Being able to coax Jim to a quiet, subdued orgasm through kissing does wonders for Gob’s self-esteem.

Gob’s apartment becomes their usual hangout, despite its lack of furnishings, though Jim doesn’t seem to mind that they always end up on the bed. A few nights a week, Jim will stop by Gob’s place for dinner and bring his laptop along so they can watch movies. Sometimes they go out for tacos or burgers, or catch a movie at the cineplex, or Gob will bring Jim along to one of his shows.

“You have a poster of yourself over your bed?” Jim asks the next time he’s at Gob’s apartment. 

“You don’t?”

Framed above Gob’s bed is a poster advertising his own magic show at the Bellagio from almost ten years ago. Gob has tried to make the bedroom cozier, considering it’s the only room where either of them spends much their time, so he’s taken to hanging pictures on the walls.

“Of course I don’t. I’m not a big-shot magician,” Jim says. “Was this your first Vegas show?”

“Got it in one!” Gob claps Jim on the shoulder. “Yep, I kinda sorta stole it from the venue.”

“I’m sure they would’ve let you have it if you asked.”

“But where’s the fun in that?”

“You got any more stuff like this?” Jim asks, intrigue sparkling in his eyes.

So that’s how they end up sitting on the living room floor, examining the contents of one of Gob’s many still-packed boxes. This one is his memorabilia box, filled with various items pertaining to his magic act. There’s a scrapbook filled with handbills from nearly every show, and clipped advertisements and media press about his act, all meticulously centered and taped under protective plastic sheets.

Jim says, “This is so cool,” with almost every crackle of a page turn, studying each item like there might be a test on it later. “You’ve had a pretty long career, huh?”

“It took a few years to get off the ground,” Gob says in an attempt at humility.

“I’ve worked at the same place for eight years, and I couldn’t fill a book like this.”

“You’re a salesman.” Gob’s trying to remind Jim that their careers aren’t really comparable, and that Jim shouldn’t feel bad about it, but Jim seems to take the comment as an insult.

“I always told myself this job was temporary until I found something better, but…” Jim shrugs, settling against the wall. “I don’t know. What I’m doing now is going nowhere.”

Gob almost asks if Jim’s interested in working alongside Michael Bluth at his real estate development company, but he has to stop himself. Gob’s told everyone his family is dead; how would he navigate that lie to offer Jim a job?

So Gob relies on a joke. “You could be my beautiful stage assistant. I can always use a nice pair of legs.”

“Do you offer a 401(k)? Dental? What’s your health coverage like?”

“Okay, so it’s more like an unpaid internship…” 

Jim goes for the box again, drawing out a second scrapbook. “Another one?” The binding cracks as Jim opens it. Inside is an assortment of photos, pictures of the few good memories Gob has with his family — thus, only a handful of pages are filled in. “Oh, wow. Is this your family?” Jim goes a little pink with the awareness that he might be overstepping some unspoken boundary. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t be nosing through all this.”

“It’s fine. You can look.”

Gob doesn’t want to talk about them right now, but he lets Jim flip through the pages. Very few of the pictures are from Gob’s childhood; most of them are from events like Lindsay’s wedding, Michael’s bachelor party, Michael’s wedding, baby pictures of George Michael and Maeby.

“Who are the kids?” Jim asks, like he knows whatever answer he gets will crush him.

“My niece and nephew.”

Jim exhales a long sigh. “Okay. Sorry. This is bumming me out.” He closes the scrapbooks and neatly tucks them back into the box. “You want dinner?”

Last time they had pizza, so tonight it’s Chinese takeout. Jim playfully steals a bite or two of fried rice when Gob’s pretending not to look. They’re still sitting in the living room, the takeout boxes spread out before them like a feast.

“You really need a TV,” Jim says. “And a couch. But I think TV’s more important.”

“It’s overrated,” Gob says, just to see Jim get passionate about the benefits of television.

“Overrated? Have you actually watched TV? It’s incredible.” Jim reaches across Gob for one of those crispy crab puff things. “Maybe you should come over to my place, and I’ll show you what you’re missing.”

Gob laughs. “Smooth.”

“And you’ll get to see what makes couches so great.”

“You had me at ‘come over.’” Gob nudges Jim just for an excuse to touch him.

* * *

Gob ends up at Jim’s two-story condo the following Friday evening. 

“You live here?” Gob asks when Jim opens the door.

“Just renting. I have a roommate, but he’s out for the night, so…” Jim raises his eyebrows in lewd suggestion.

“Trying to seduce me, Mr. Halpert?”

Jim laughs nervously. “A little bit, yeah. Is it working?”

“It works when you’re not trying, too.”

The inside is cozy, with minimalist décor and more furniture than Gob’s ever owned. Gob looks at a few framed prints of famous paintings covering the walls. “You’re really into art, huh?”

“That would be my roommate. Mark,” Jim says.

Gob recognizes some of the pieces from Lindsay’s brief obsession with art auctions, most notably David Hockney’s _Portrait of an Artist._ Gob appreciates the sense of isolation and detachment conveyed in the painting.

“You want the grand tour?” Jim asks. 

Jim shows him the backyard, which is perfectly sized for cookouts and small parties. Then they go upstairs to Jim’s bedroom, which is pretty much where Gob figured the tour would end. Jim’s room is small, almost like a college dorm — not that Gob would know, having never set foot inside an institute of higher learning. There are pictures and posters tacked to the walls, and most of the floorspace is taken up by furniture — a writing desk and a bed much smaller than Gob’s own.

“So this is where the magic happens, huh?” says Gob.

“I’m surprised you didn’t say that about your place.”

“Too cliché.” Gob’s attention is drawn to a gold trophy on a nearby shelf. “You won something?”

“Basketball. My senior year of high school.” Jim tries to look proud, but there’s a falter in his smile, like he thinks it’s remarkably sad he hasn’t accomplished anything trophy-worthy since he graduated. He said something about working for Dunder Mifflin for eight years, so…

“How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty-eight next month.”

Jim’s older than Gob thought by a few years, but it still hits him like a punch to the chest. _I’m a little old for you, Jim, but I won’t say no if you don’t._

Gob wonders how old Jim thinks he is, before shutting that thought down entirely. No good will come from that, and he won’t answer unless under oath. Even then, he’ll probably lie.

“Happy early birthday,” Gob says. Then, just to steer them away from the subject: “You think this bed will be big enough for us?”

The conversational swerve to flirtation makes color rise in Jim’s cheeks.

“C’mon, you already admitted to seducing me, inviting me here while your roommate’s out for the night.”

As far as sexual overtures are concerned, all they’ve done is touch each other over their clothes, and if Jim happens to come while they do it, Gob’s not complaining. He’s been letting Jim take the lead, because this is Gob’s _soulmate,_ and he doesn’t want to fuck things up by moving too fast like he has with everyone else. Just because Gob’s slept around trying to fill the void inside him doesn’t mean Jim has, and Jim’s already admitted to being completely inexperienced anyway.

Jim rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Is this weird for you?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s _weird_. It’s kind of hot, actually. I’m always the one trying too hard to get someone in bed. This is a nice role reversal.” Gob considers their roles reversing elsewhere, and a hot shiver runs through him. He’s never ceded control in the bedroom, as it’s always felt like the only sort of control he’s ever had in his life, but with Jim, maybe… 

“You think I’m trying too hard?” Jim asks.

“I think if you want to have sex with me, you just need to ask.”

They don’t have sex, at least not in the way Gob imagined. What happens instead is Jim gets Gob on the bed and blows him. Jim’s not a pro by any means, but it doesn’t matter. 

“Holy fucking shit,” Gob groans, captivated by the lush, wet suction of Jim’s eager mouth. Jim opens his eyes to gaze up at Gob, to see what all of this is doing to him. Gob curls a hand in Jim’s hair and moans an embarrassing choked noise, like it’s his first blow job all over again.

Gob’s had oral sex before, mostly backstage after a show (”Yes, magicians have groupies,” he’s often bragged to Michael), or in some dark crevice of a dimly lit bar, and then there was that one time in the dressing room of the Spanish soap opera star he was dating. But none of them have been like this; Gob’s always felt half-drunk, never seeming to be fully inside of himself, inhabiting a distant plane of consciousness. 

But now Gob feels everything: the tickling pressure of Jim’s hand, the little nipping kisses up his length, the luscious heat of Jim’s mouth. “Fuck,” Gob groans again, and he’s falling apart before he can get any more words out. 

Jim doesn’t pull away or gag, and Gob watches to see if he’ll surreptitiously spit into an old sock. But Jim just licks his lower lip and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and Gob falls a little deeper in love.


	3. i've found a way to make you smile

Jim answers his desk phone, greeted with Gob’s voice on the other end. “Jim, I’ve got a surprise for you!” Hearing Gob’s voice at work feels bizarre; Jim’s only spoken to him in person or on his cell. He didn’t know Gob had the number.

“A surprise, huh?” Jim opens his desk drawers. “Well, there’s no flock of doves bursting out of my desk. So I’m a little disappointed.”

“I hope your weekend is free,” Gob says. “I’m taking you on a surprise birthday date. And you’ll never guess what it is, so don’t bother.”

Jim lifts an eyebrow. “How do you know when my birthday is?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“You can’t use that line to get out of everything,” Jim says, but he can’t even pretend to be annoyed.

“I can, and I will.”

Jim glances at Pam, who shoots him a knowing smile. How difficult would it have been for Gob to call the front desk and have a secret chat with Pam about Jim’s birthday? She can be pretty sneaky when she wants to be, and Gob’s entire career is built on playful deception.

“So, not even a hint, huh?” 

“Nope,” Gob says, popping the ‘p.’

Jim could venture a guess or two just for fun, but he’s in the office and doesn’t want to supply any eavesdroppers with too much conversational ammunition about his personal life. “Alright, keep me in suspense, then. This weekend? The whole weekend? So we’re going somewhere?”

“Ah, ah, ah! No guessing! And, yes, the whole weekend.”

“I’m on the edge of my seat,” Jim says.

When Jim hangs up, Dwight is scrutinizing him the way Jane Goodall might study an ape. “Something’s strange. You’re smiling.”

“That’s strange?” Jim asks. “Most people consider it very normal, actually.” He’s well aware of Dwight’s views on smiling.

“It’s not like you to smile after a phone call. Who were you speaking to?”

“Nunya,” Jim says.

Dwight walks right into the verbal trap Jim has set for him. “Nunya who?”

“Nunya Bizness.”

Pam chortles.

Then a terrifying expression of twisted glee appears on Dwight’s face, and it’s clear he could not give less of a shit about Jim’s joke, because something more important has occurred to him. “Oh, this is _good_ ,” he says, steepling his fingers like an evil mastermind. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure I know exactly what this is, and mark my words, Jim Halpert, this time the ball is in my court.”

As usual, Jim has no idea what the hell Dwight’s talking about. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

Maybe Dwight’s figured out that Jim’s dating someone, or even that he met his soulmate. But so what? It’s not like Jim doesn’t plan on telling the rest of his friends eventually. Just not right now.

* * *

Jim spends Friday night at Gob’s, then in the afternoon they’re in the stair car and on the road to some indeterminate destination. Jim is slightly embarrassed to be seen in this thing, but he supposes it could be worse.

“Still not telling me where we’re going?”

“As a magician, the element of surprise is paramount. So, no.”

“Fine,” Jim acquiesces. He doesn’t really care; their destination will be revealed in time, and he’s pretty certain Gob isn’t going to drive him out to an abandoned field and murder him. “So, this is a family heirloom, huh?” he asks, glancing at the interior of the stair car. “Not sure how you could fit a family in here, but I bet there’s a story.”

Gob taps his fingers on the steering wheel, as if he’s trying to recall a long-lost memory. “My dad started a real estate development company back home. The car came with the company jet, but—” He pauses. “The business had some money troubles, so they sold off the jet. I took the car, mostly ‘cause I didn’t have one at the time.”

“Did your siblings work at the Bluth Company?” Jim asks, curious about Gob’s past. “Like, was it a family business?”

“Not really. When Dad retired, he gave the title of CEO to our mother, which really upset Michael, since he thought he was next in line. I thought he was, too. He’s always been their golden child.” Gob laughs bitterly. “Not in the way you’re thinking. But he wasn’t _me_ , so that made him — that made him better.

“Lindsay’s never worked a day in her life. She’s just a Xerox of our mother, except she’s too stuck-up to realize it. And Buster could never hold a job, especially at the Bluth Company. When I was a kid, I knocked him around a lot. I think I was jealous of him. He was the youngest, so he got the most attention, and Mom liked him best.

“Not that it did him any good — he’s a neurotic manchild who still lives with Mom into his thirties — but… it would’ve been nice, y’know, just to get a taste of what it was like for him growing up. Not the ‘me kicking his ass’ part. The part where Mom actually likes him. _Loves_ him, maybe, if she’s capable of it.”

Jim suspects the family’s deaths must be recent, as Gob’s still grappling with tenses. But hearing all this breaks his heart. Jim had his own scuffles and turmoil with his siblings growing up, but he always knew their parents loved them all equally. There was never a moment where Jim thought he was the black sheep — or that there even _was_ a black sheep in the Halpert home. 

“Before me, only two of us ever found our soulmates,” Gob continues. “Michael married his, but she died a few years back. Buster found his in a woman Mom’s age who lives across the hall. And, of course, Mom won’t let Buster date her, because apparently she’s hellbent on turning him into the lovechild of Pee-Wee Herman and Norman Bates. With a claw.” Gob chuckles at some private joke. “But Bluths don’t get happy endings. Not outside of Asian massage parlors, at least.”

“Maybe _you_ do,” Jim says, trying to be helpful. “You’re in charge of your own story, right?”

“Except not really, because the universe decides to shove two random people together and call it fate.” Gob glances at Jim. “No offense.”

“We don’t choose to be born either, but we make the best of it. Just because your family was unhappy doesn’t mean you have to be, too. You survived. That’s got to count for something.” Jim has no idea if this will set off an internal landmine of survivor’s guilt inside of Gob. He’s not great at pep talks, but he wants Gob to feel better.

“Maybe. Or maybe that’s the only stroke of luck I get, and life goes back to being one long, hard kick in the balls.”

“You’re a glass half-empty kind of guy.”

“You’re not?”

“I guess it’s obvious,” Jim says, a little self-conscious. “But you grew up in dysfunction. I’d be surprised if you weren’t waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. But it won’t. Not with me, alright?”

Gob stares straight ahead at the road, but the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”

* * *

Jim begins to panic when they roll into the countryside, turn onto a dirt road, and pass a mailbox reading ‘Schrute Farms.’

“Oh my God.”

Dwight knew exactly what was in store for Jim, and Jim’s personal and work lives are about to collide like a meteor hurtling on a crash-course toward the planet. Dwight knows very little about Relationship Jim, or Personal Life Jim; Office Jim is his only frame of reference, someone he’s seen for years at Dunder Mifflin. Getting out of this car means merging Office Jim, Relationship Jim, Personal Life Jim, and all the other Jims into some horrifying Cronenberg monster begging for a mercy kill. 

A Jim divided against itself cannot stand!

As the stair car pulls up to the quaint-looking farmhouse that is the Schrute Farms bed and breakfast, Jim spots Dwight sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. Can Dwight see Jim through the passenger side window, or is the tint dark enough to buy Jim some time? Even just the handful of seconds it will save him to cobble together a disguise out of the junk in Gob’s car are precious. 

“Gob. Tell me you didn’t.”

“You got me!” Gob says, misinterpreting Jim’s tone as shocked delight. “I thought we could use a weekend to ourselves. And it’s your birthday, after all.”

Jim squeezes his eyes shut, as though he’s the magician and can make himself disappear with enough willpower. It doesn’t work. He really needs to invest in some of those smoke-bomb pellets for occasions like this.

_You are killing Independent Jim!_ he thinks, recalling the old _Seinfeld_ bit. But Jim knows voicing his displeasure will crush Gob, and it’s kind of a dick move to criticize something nice a person does for you. Gob had no way of knowing Jim and the Schrute Farms proprietor work together.

Maybe it won’t be that bad. After all, Gob is used to dysfunction, and at least Dwight puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional. He’s eccentric, but so is Gob — clearly Gob has never seen or heard a chicken in real life, judging by his terrible impersonations of one; bearing witness to Gob’s chicken impersonation for the first time made Jim laugh so hard he almost passed out. 

And it’s not like Jim planned on keeping Gob and his office pals separate forever. The reveal is no longer on Jim’s timetable.

Jim’s sweating as he gets out of the car. Dwight grins maniacally when he sees Jim, but he doesn’t let on that they know each other. “ _Guten tag_ , my friends!” Dwight says, rising from the rocking chair. “Welcome to Schrute Farms, your peak agrotourism destination. I am Dwight Schrute, your proprietor. And this is our activities director, my cousin Mose.” 

Standing beside Dwight is a bearded farmboy in overalls whose dead stare resembles Dwight’s own. He has a vaguely threatening aura, and he moves for the stair car, opening the passenger door and retrieving the luggage.

“Mose will assist you with your bags,” Dwight explains, as Mose sets the bags on the porch. “He’s also our valet.”

Jim absolutely doesn’t trust Mose with a vehicle (or anyone in the Schrute family tree — Jim recalls a time Dwight crashed into a pole outside the office), though Gob seems to. “Great! Thanks, Mose!” Gob tosses Mose the car key, a catch which he fumbles. Mose spends about twenty seconds pushing dirt around, looking for the key. 

“That’s quite the interesting vehicle you have there,” Dwight says to Gob.

Gob does what Jim can only describe as _posturing_ , putting his hands on his hips and shifting his weight like he’s posing for a magazine shoot. “Yeah? It’s a, uh, family heirloom. One of a kind.”

“Then you’ll appreciate our interior decorating. Most of the items inside have been in the Schrute family for centuries. You two will be staying the weekend?” Dwight says, talking to Gob but looking at Jim. “You’re aware we make our own mattresses that do not conform to modern mattress sizes?”

Behind them, Mose starts the car and drives off. Jim almost expects the stairs to disconnect from the car like a loose trailer as Mose drives away.

“I… did not know that,” Jim says, though cramming himself and Gob onto a small mattress won’t be the end of the world. It’s not like they haven’t slept together in Jim’s twin-size bed before. Jim looks at Gob, already feeling the blush creeping across his cheeks. “Did you?”

“Oh yeah, he told me everything over the phone.”

“Then you know beets are our primary source of income and activities,” Dwight says, clearly getting a thrill out of fucking with Jim by not acknowledging his existence.

“Bees?” Gob wonders.

“ _Beets_ ,” Jim says with emphasis.

“Beads?”

Dwight leads them inside. The interior is old wood and homey, and Jim can’t get over how fucking weird it is to see someone he knows only from work out in the wild. “Are you interested in our beet winemaking classes?”

“Sir, you had me at wine,” Gob says.

“Excellent. I have you both staying in the Irrigation room.” Dwight takes them upstairs to a cozy, albeit cramped room with two small beds, a rocking chair, and an array of pipes mounted to the walls and coming out of the floorboards.

“Do the pipes do anything?” Jim asks.

“They’re for show,” Dwight informs him. 

“Well, this is… nice,” Gob says. He sets his suitcase on one of the beds, perhaps expecting the bed to buckle, but it doesn’t. 

The window offers a relaxing view of the beet fields as far as Jim can see. A silly part of Jim that watches too many comedy flicks is somewhat disappointed they won’t need to share a bed.

“Oh, and your butter sculpture is safe and sound in the refrigerator,” Dwight says.

“Butter sculpture?” Jim and Gob ask in unison, though Gob says, “Jinx!” afterwards.

“Yes, we offer butter sculptures of a cow, goat, or sheep, each made from the butter of that animal, for any event.”

_Event?_ Jim wonders. Could it be possible Dwight is showing his hand here? Of course he knows when Jim’s birthday is; they’ve worked in the same office for years, and it’s very in-character for Dwight to catalogue information on his enemies. But maybe Gob mentioned it when booking the room, and Jim’s just paranoid.

Gob is distracted by a more pressing question. “Is it life-size?”

Dwight gives him a patented _look_ , the kind Jim is all too familiar with. “It fits in the fridge, so… no.”

“I want to see,” Jim says. Time to get this awkward nonsense over with. He looks at Gob. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

Jim follows Dwight downstairs to the main room, where Mose has returned. He’s hanging the key to the stair car on a corkboard behind the front desk, on a nail beneath a handwritten sign reading ‘Irrigation room.’ 

Dwight opens the fridge. The goat butter sculpture sits on the top shelf, immaculately hand-carved, with little indents and shavings to simulate the goat’s fur. It almost looks too good to eat.

“Did Gob tell you we were staying here for my birthday, or did you figure it out and whip this up later?” Jim asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. This is standard procedure for every guest.”

“But you just said ‘events’—”

“It’s called hospitality, Jim. And Mose needed something constructive to do.”

“Whoa. Mose did this? Nice work.”

“If you and your _friend_ intend to turn this establishment into your own personal love parlor, let me remind you we cater to the elderly. Our beds and homemade mattresses aren’t built to withstand that kind of raucous use.”

Jim feels the tips of his ears go red. The word ‘raucous’ stirs up some pretty spicy mental images. “We’re not — don’t worry. That’s not why we’re here.” He thought about having sex with Gob tonight, but without any real clarity, the way you might imagine winning the lottery or attending your own funeral. But those thoughts came before Jim knew they would be staying where his antagonistic coworker might hear him moaning through the walls. And Mose seems like he might hide in the shadows of the room, pretending to be a coat rack or something while Jim and Gob go at it.

“He just wanted to do something nice for me,” Jim says, smiling like an idiot.

“Then I assume the cherry stem served its purpose as a good luck charm,” Dwight says. “This guy’s your soulmate?”

Jim nods, a breathy laugh bursting out of him as he thinks about how absurd it is that he’s sharing this with Dwight Schrute of all people. “Yeah. I guess I owe you and Michael all the thanks in the world.”

“Why Michael?”

“Gob was the magician at Michael and Holly’s wedding.”

Dwight’s eyes widen. He shuts the fridge door and rushes up the stairs. Jim follows him, fearing he’s unleashed Dwight’s full chaotic energy on an unsuspecting Gob.

“Jim tells me you’re a magician,” Dwight says upon entering the room, where Gob is laid out on the bed, flipping through a Schrute Farms pamphlet.

“That’s right.”

“I request to see a trick,” Dwight says, and Jim laughs to himself, because he knows what’s coming.

“A trick is something a whore does for money,” Gob insists. “You mean an _illusion_.”

“Right. Of course. My mistake. I request an illusion.”

“Gob, you don’t have to. You’re not a circus monkey who performs on command,” Jim reminds him. The last thing he wants is for Gob to feel like his only value lies in his abilities.

“Are you kidding? Half the reason I got into magic was for attention.” Gob sits up and rubs his hands together. “Watch closely.” He holds his palms out, as if to show there are no tricks up his proverbial (or literal) sleeves. Then a colorful bouquet blossoms from the inside of his right sleeve. Green stems grow, and white and purple flowers sprout from them. Jim has seen Gob perform this one few times before, but he’s still not quite sure how it’s done. It’s not exactly the trick paper bouquet exhibited by the carnival showmen of his youth.

Dwight watches, scrutinizing, the way he did at the wedding while he watched Gob’s act. 

Gob waves his fingers through the flowers, and they disintegrate like a sandcastle being kicked. 

“Another,” Dwight says.

“Not impressed?” Gob holds out a hand, and bright tongues of fire sprout from each finger, as though they’re cigarette lighters being flicked to life. Jim’s seen this one too, and it’s a decent metaphor for what it feels like when Gob touches him. 

Jim can’t figure this one out either. Neither, it seems, can the Schrutes.

“He’s a witch!” Mose exclaims from behind them, and Jim jumps, because when the hell did he sneak in? Mose runs down the stairs, his boots clomping loudly against the wood. 

Gob waggles his hand, and the flames are gone.

“I will give you a thousand dollars if you can tell me how you did that,” Dwight says.

“Uh, because I’m _awesome_?” Gob holds his hand out for the money. “Pay up.”

“He’s not going to tell you,” Jim says to Dwight. “They’re trade secrets.”

* * *

A little while later, Dwight takes them into the kitchen for the beet winemaking class. There are all types of equipment spread across the countertops: plastic tubing, a large funnel and bucket, and glass bottles, among others Jim can’t even identify.

“Are we making meth or wine?” Gob mutters at Jim’s ear, making him snicker.

A basket of foodstuffs sits on the counter too, and Dwight shows off all its ingredients (beets, white sugar, oranges, raisins, peppercorns, black tea, and water) and explains the purpose for each. Mose washes and chops the beets before throwing them in a huge stockpot to cook.

“The beets must simmer for forty-five minutes,” Dwight says. “While Mose is busy with that, let me show you what the mixture looks like when it’s finished cooking. Jim, fetch my supplies.” Dwight points to the plastic tubing and a glass gallon jug.

“Am I your workhorse now?” Jim asks, half-joking.

“I would never compare you to a horse, Jim. Horses are majestic, noble creatures. Now let’s go.”

Jim and Gob exchange a glance. Jim figures the path of least resistance is to obey, so he grabs the supplies.

Dwight leads them out of the house and into the shed. One wall of the shed is lined with white buckets, each one marked with a different number.

“What do the numbers mean?” Jim asks.

“The wine needs twelve days for the added yeast to turn sugar into alcohol,” Dwight says. “So the number on each bucket counts how many days have gone by since the yeast was added.”

Dwight stops at a bucket marked ‘12.’ “Jim, open the lid and remove the bag.”

“Why does he get to do everything?” Gob whines. “I wanna do something!”

“You can hold these.” Jim gives Gob the jug and tubing so he can open the lid. He draws out a burgundy-stained straining bag, letting the liquid drain back into the bucket. “Should I—”

“No, you don’t want to squeeze it,” Dwight says, and for some reason Jim hears Michael Scott’s voice in his head retorting with, _That’s what she said._ “You’ll add dead yeast back in.”

When the draining is done, Dwight tosses the bag into a nearby trash bin. He shows them how to transfer the wine into the jug using the tubing, overexplaining everything in that way of his.

“Should I be taking notes?” Gob wonders.

“Only if you want to pass the test later,” Dwight says.

“He’s kidding,” Jim assures him. “There’s no test… Is there?”

“When the transfer is finished,” Dwight says, ignoring Jim, “the jug is sealed for six months, then fermentation should be complete.”

Jim looks at all the buckets awaiting their transfer tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, and so on. “Do you do this every day?”

“Only for a week or two around this time of year. We want the wine to be ready for sale around the spring and summer, so we start now. We aim for about a hundred bottles by June. Each gallon makes five bottles.”

Jim counts the buckets and finds fifteen, sixteen if he counts the one being cooked up by Mose in the house. “Wow. You really work hard here.” He never considered that Dwight could be more than just the eccentric kiss-ass Jim knows from work. 

When they’re finished with the buckets in the shed, they go back to the house to taste a glass of finished beet wine. The wine is nothing like Jim expected, instead a nice dry red with lots of body. Even Gob likes it, though Jim suspects he’ll drink anything if there’s alcohol inside.

When the beets are finished cooking, Mose scoops them into a strainer bag and into a fresh bucket, along with the sugary-sweet beet water.

“After twenty-four hours, the yeast goes in,” Dwight tells them as Mose hauls the bucket to the shed. “Then the mixture is stirred once a day for twelve days, until it’s ready for the jug.”

“The circle of beets,” Jim says, and the sound of Gob’s laughter makes the dumb joke worth it.

* * *

They’re upstairs in the Irrigation room when Gob digs a half-full bottle of bourbon from his suitcase.

“Have a drink with me?”

Jim agrees, then Gob’s leading him down the stairs and out the front door. “Where are we going?”

“I thought we could sit outside, y’know, and watch the sun set.” Gob appears to be reading Jim’s face, and whatever he sees there seems to discourage him. “Unless you think that’s totally lame and stupid, then we won’t.”

“I think it’s nice. Let’s go.”

Gob leads Jim through a field via a worn dirt path. Jim experiences a brief flicker of ‘am I about to be murdered’ panic, though not necessarily by Gob. Most of Jim’s experience with the wilderness has been through movies like _Deliverance_ and _Children of the Corn_. 

“Children of the Beets,” Jim murmurs to himself, snickering.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, I just… thought of something dumb. Where are we going, exactly? Is there a hill, or an open field—” It’s then that Jim sees the stair car, and realization dawns on him. “That is… amazing.”

“I knew this thing would come in handy for something eventually.”

There isn’t a valet parking lot (or any parking lot, really), just a clearing of trampled grass and dirt. When they reach the stairs, Gob lets Jim go first, though Jim suspects that’s less out of politeness and more out of a desire to stare at his ass as he climbs. Jim makes it up and sits on the lift, scooting to the side so Gob has room. 

It’s a beautiful October evening, the foliage beginning its metamorphosis from green to a palette of browns, yellows, reds, and oranges. Above them, the sky is a watercolor of blue and orange, with pink cotton candy clouds fanning out in wisps. 

Gob climbs the stairs and takes the empty space beside Jim at the top. He twists open the bottle, offering Jim the first pull. “Back home, I liked to go down to the beach and watch the sunset,” Gob explains while Jim drinks.

“Do you miss it? The beach, I mean. Obviously the sun sets wherever you are.”

Gob shrugs, accepting the bottle when Jim hands it back. He takes a long drink. “I don’t know. I never thought I’d end up here. I just—” He stops, as if catching himself before he says too much. “It was a roll of the dice, I guess. There are more things back home that I _don’t_ miss. And, of course, I didn’t find my soulmate there.” Gob gives him a meaningful look that makes Jim hot all over. “For the first time, I think I’m really happy.”

“Me too.” Jim has fallen into doomed one-sided crushes since middle school, but he has never felt this kind of pure, unadulterated joy before. Food tastes richer, the lyrics of his favorite songs hit differently, and the world seems a little more magical — none of which he can write off as byproducts of his new color vision. 

“Does it scare you? Being happy?” Gob asks.

“A little. But it’s a fun kind of scary, like a haunted house.”

“You’re not worried you’ll screw it up and be alone forever?”

“Well, I am _now_ ,” Jim says, teasing. Sensing that Gob needs reassurance, Jim leans against him. “You don’t need to be worried. You’re doing great.”

“Really?” Gob lets out a sigh of relief and takes another drink. “My parents never really celebrated our birthdays. Dad thought they were a waste of cake and paper, and if Mom wasn’t the center of attention, then what was the point? So… I’m not good at this ‘giving gifts’ thing. Crazy, right? I mean, how hard is it to do something nice for somebody?”

If Jim could touch Gob and absorb even a fraction of his insecurities, he would. “This is awesome. I’m having a good time, so thank you.” They pass the bottle back and forth in a comfortable silence. It’s moments like these that Jim wishes could stretch on forever. 

“I guess I should be honest with you,” Jim says after the bourbon begins to take its toll. “I know Dwight from work.”

Gob laughs, light and airy. “No shit?”

“He’s sort of my archnemesis. The Joker to my Batman.”

“That explains so much. And yet so little. Why is he pretending like he doesn’t know you?”

“To screw with me, probably. I prank him a lot at the office, so this is a good chance for him to get back at me. If anything super weird or embarrassing happens, I’m sorry.”

“Oh please,” Gob scoffs. “Compared to the batshit insanity of my family? This Dwight guy is normal.” He takes a swig from the bottle. “When Lindsay found out Dad was cheating on Mom, she told one of his lovers, so Dad sent Lindsay’s teacher poisoned muffins ‘to make a point.’ Buster got his hand bitten off by a seal when he went swimming in the ocean to rebel against our mother. Oh, and Dad went to prison for fraud. I can go on.”

“Okay, you win.”

When the sun has become a sliver on the horizon, and the bourbon is almost gone, Gob and Jim are making out on top of the stair car. After dating Gob for about three months now, Jim has technique _,_ and he’s learned how Gob likes to be kissed, with teasing little bites at his lower lip that make Gob growl wordless pleasure into Jim’s mouth. Gob paws at him, first cradling Jim’s face in his hands, then easing one hand underneath Jim’s shirt, his fingers tweaking a nipple and eliciting a breathy gasp from Jim. 

Gob is so close, and Jim can smell the alcohol on his breath and the cologne on his throat, can feel the damp sweat on the back of his neck just below his hair. Jim moves almost on auto-pilot so his back is pressed against the barricade of the stair car’s top platform. His legs open enough for Gob to find his place between them. So it shouldn’t surprise Jim when Gob crowds him and sticks his hand inside Jim’s fly, his nails scraping through the coarse hair on their way down, _down—_

Jim yelps. He can’t help it; being touched like this is still so new to him. He’s amazed he hasn’t come all over himself by now.

“You want this?” Gob asks, his fingers curling around Jim’s cock, and Jim whimpers. “Tell me you want this.”

“Only if you call it a hand-Gob,” Jim says, cracking a grin.

“God, you’re so lame,” Gob murmurs into his skin.

It doesn’t take very long at all for Jim to shoot off with a strangled cry, and he’d be more embarrassed about it if his nerve endings weren’t singing a goddamn aria. Jim rests his head against the barricade and loses himself in the twilight sky. “Fuck…” he sighs. Gob’s hand is still squeezing and stroking him, albeit gently, which helps Jim through the shivery comedown. 

Jim supposes he ought to return the favor. Not that this is a transactional relationship by any means, but he doesn’t want to leave Gob hanging with a severe case of blue balls. Jim palms the bulge in Gob’s slacks, savoring the rumbling groan Gob makes in response. Jim looks up, intent on studying the way Gob’s brow creases and how his teeth snag his lower lip, but a dark spot in Jim’s peripheral vision catches his eye.

“Oh my God.” 

Mose is standing in the distance, a tiny human speck in the field. He’s not doing anything, just standing there watching them, but Jim can’t help but feel an air of menace.

Impatient, Gob ruts his hips into Jim’s hand. “C’mon,” he grunts, until he notices where Jim is looking. He follows Jim’s line of sight. “Is that…”

“Mose.”

Gob chuckles to himself and opens his blazer. A dove flies out, and Mose runs away, his arms swinging low at his sides. As Gob laughs, Jim watches the dove flap its wings and fly higher until it disappears.

A hologram, perhaps? A real dove certainly wasn’t in Gob’s clothes earlier, when Jim had his hands inside and underneath them. 

“That’s never gonna get old,” Gob says, turning back to Jim with a self-satisfied grin. The grin falters when something occurs to him. “You don’t think he’s gonna rat us out, do you?”

While Jim wouldn’t put it past Dwight to kick him and Gob out on the grounds of some made-up decree banning sexual conduct on his property, Jim doubts Mose shares the same level of playful antagonism as Dwight.

“I don’t think so. But if he does…” Jim sneaks his hand inside Gob’s slacks. “We should hurry.”

It turns out that Gob doesn’t last much longer than Jim, but he does manage to stripe the front of Jim’s T-shirt when he comes. “You can’t blame me for that,” Gob says, breathless, and alright, it is mostly Jim’s fault, since he couldn’t help but drag Gob closer and closer until they were pressed against each other.

Regardless, Jim says, “I can, and I will. You got any magic handkerchiefs in there?” He tugs at the sleeve of Gob’s blazer as if coaxing one out.

Gob pulls one from the other sleeve, just to be petty. Jim cleans up the best he can, but there’s still a dark, stringy stain on his shirt that communicates exactly what’s happened here.

“Maybe we should head back,” Jim says, as the sun begins to disappear.

* * *

After taking turns in the shower (despite its nine bedrooms, the inn boasts only one bathroom), Jim and Gob are starving.

“It’s a bed and _breakfast_ , Jim,” Dwight informs them. “Not a bed and dinner.”

“So we’ll have eggs,” Gob says.

Dwight just looks at Gob like he’s missed the point entirely.

“We have bread,” Mose informs them.

Jim and Gob share a toasted loaf of French bread, brushing each piece with a knife’s worth of glaze from the butter sculpture. The butter is surprisingly sweet, the bread light and airy. It’s not the healthiest dinner Jim’s ever had, but it beats his steady diet of instant ramen and pizza rolls when he was in college. 

Halfway through the meal, Dwight approaches their table, displaying a pair of handcuffs. “Gob, I request another performance. I hold in my hands a pair of standard police-issue handcuffs—”

“Why do you have those?” Jim asks.

“I’m a sheriff’s deputy, Jim!” Dwight says, like they’ve been over this a million times. 

“You’re a volunteer,” Jim corrects.

“This is hardly the time for semantics.” Dwight turns his attention back to Gob. “Anyway, I request you perform one of your escape acts from these normal, standard-issue cuffs.”

Jim sighs. “Dwight, c’mon. The illusion only works because he’s using special cuffs, right?”

He looks to Gob for confirmation, but Gob stands up and says, “Sir, you’ve thrown down the gauntlet. I accept your challenge.”

Jim almost wants to stop him, but on some intrinsic level he trusts that Gob can actually find a way out of this. Gob’s a modern-day Houdini, in that no one can quite figure out how he does his tricks, but Jim has an idea… Time to test the hypothesis.

Dwight makes a big show out of displaying the handcuffs and demonstrating that they have no trick latches. He gropes through the pockets and sleeves of Gob’s silk robe, at which Gob quips, “Hey, buy me a drink first.” Then Dwight opens Gob’s mouth, inspecting his teeth like Gob is a show horse.

“Dwight, c’mon,” Jim says. This is getting ridiculous, and Jim’s embarrassed for everyone in the room.

“No hidden keys or lockpick devices,” Dwight announces. He cuffs Gob’s hands behind his back. Jim hears the steely click of each lock. Gob gives Jim a flirty grin and a wink; Jim has no idea if this is an insinuation they should incorporate handcuffs into future sex acts, or if Gob’s simply saying, ‘I’ve got this.’

Dwight steps back and proudly displays the handcuff key. “You’ll observe I maintain possession of the sole key,” he says to their small audience of Mose and Jim. Dwight presses a few buttons on his wristwatch and addresses Gob. “You have exactly two minutes. Begin.” 

Jim’s seen Gob’s escape act a handful of times, and Gob’s only needed about a minute or two to disentangle himself from handcuffs, ropes, and chains. This attempt takes him even less time. Gob keeps his eyes on the key Dwight’s holding. After half a minute, Jim sees Gob’s arms start to move a bit, like Gob’s trying to play with the lock. 

Then, Jim hears one small steely click, the same sound he heard when Dwight fastened the cuffs. Then another, and Gob pulls his hands free of the open cuffs. “Ta-da!” He dangles the handcuffs from a finger, looking smug and self-assured. 

Jim hides his grin with a hand. His hypothesis has been tested, and the results are looking good. He’ll have to get Gob alone later and ask a few questions, just to make sure.

“He’s a witch!” Mose insists, but he doesn’t run away this time. He looks kind of impressed.

Dwight takes back the cuffs, inspecting them like he thinks Gob might have damaged them in some way. “Impossible. Where’d you hide the bobby pin?”

Gob spreads his hands. “You said it yourself: no hidden keys or lockpicks. Why not just enjoy the mystery?”

“I don’t like mystery,” Dwight says, though to his credit he doesn’t try to rope Gob into performing another stunt.

Later, up in their room, Jim and Gob are cuddled close in one of the beds when Jim says, “Hey, can I ask you something? Total honesty.”

“That depends,” Gob says, sounding nervous, “on what the question is.”

“If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. Of course. But I was wondering… you wouldn’t happen to be a golden child, would you? I mean, your parents weren’t soulmates, and you’re pretty gifted. Maybe I’m way off, but you’re _something_ , aren’t you?”

Gob takes a long, deep breath. Jim winds an arm around Gob’s waist, and a bit of tension in his body seems to relax. “How’d you figure it out?”

“Your magic… Well, they’re not tricks, but they’re not exactly illusions either. It’s almost like” — Jim laughs, realizing the absurdity — ”you’re a _real_ magician. Is that your thing?”

When non-soulmates have a child, there’s a small percentage of a chance the offspring will be a golden child: a child with precocious, magnificent talent or abilities unmatched by even children of soulmates. The societal stigma around mismatches means this spark of talent is viewed as a Scarlet Letter marking them as byproducts of non-soulmates.

A handful of these golden children are born with magical abilities; some become telepaths, palm readers, psychics, or, in Gob’s case, magicians. Interestingly enough, Houdini himself is rumored to be a golden child. It would certainly explain how no one has ever been able to figure out his tricks, even after a hundred years.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Gob says in a stunned whisper. “I mean — my parents know, obviously. And my siblings. I learned pretty early to keep that card close to my chest. But I slipped up once, and it cost me a lot.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

Gob takes a breath, as if steeling himself for a difficult conversation. “Back home, I started a group called the Alliance of Magicians. We were just a bunch of local guys, but then Tony Wonder showed up. He was a big-name hotshot even back then, so who was gonna say no to him? Not me. I admired the guy. I still do, even though he—” Gob stops himself, shakes his head. “Anyway, one night I made a stupid mistake during a show. I was doing this thing where I hung over the stage, tied up with a bunch of chains secured with a padlock. The trick was a secret key hidden in my wristwatch. But as I was trying to fit the key into the lock, I dropped it.

“Stupid, right? And if I didn’t have my powers, I would’ve been screwed. But I was desperate to pull the thing off, so I just… _created_ another key. The audience couldn’t see; they figured dropping the first key was part of the act. But I guess Tony Wonder was backstage, and he saw what I was doing. After the show, he called me a fake and a fraud.”

Jim frowns. “But aren’t most magicians fake? I mean, in the sense that they’re tricking the audience?”

“There are two camps. There’s the Tony Wonder side, where only kids and morons think the tricks are real, because you’re not supposed to use real magic. Then there’s my side, where putting on a good show is the name of the game, and if I use real magic to do that, so what?

“But Tony thinks his way is the only way. I don’t know what he told the Alliance — maybe some of them wouldn’t have cared that I used real magic — but the next day they held a vote and blacklisted me.”

“At least it was democratic,” Jim says. “And you have to admit there’s a bit of twisted humor in being kicked out of a magician’s club for being an actual magician.”

“I’m laughing on the inside.” Gob slides an arm behind his head. “I think the worst part of it all is that I started the damn club. Only a Bluth could get kicked out of something they created.”

“Not necessarily. The creator of _Ren & Stimpy_ got fired from his own show,” Jim points out, hoping to lift Gob’s spirits. Gob lifts an eyebrow, as if to ask ‘how the hell do you know that?’ so Jim adds, “It was my favorite cartoon when I was in middle school.”

Gob’s still wearing a pained expression, like he’s reliving the whole thing over again just by talking about it.

“But, hey, screw those guys,” Jim says. “Success is the best revenge, right?” He slides a hand underneath Gob’s shirt to feel the warmth of his skin, and to reassure him that none of this has negatively affected their bond. But Gob needs to hear it from Jim. “I’m glad you told me. Were you afraid I’d freak out or something?”

“I thought you’d look at me different. Like a mistake.”

“Seriously? You can do actual, real magic. You’re _awesome_.”

“But it’s not something I earned. I was just born this way,” Gob says, likely repeating something he’s been told.

“We put beautiful people on a pedestal for the same reason. They just happen to be born with good looks, and society loves them for it. Why should it be different for people like you?”

“You don’t think I’m beautiful?” Gob pulls an exaggerated sad face.

“One pedestal at a time,” Jim teases. “But seriously, how do you do it? Like, what’s the science behind it?”

“Dammit, Jim, I’m a magician, not a physicist.”

Jim cracks a smile. Sometimes it’s the little things about Gob that Jim loves the most. “That handcuff trick downstairs… You just made a key out of thin air, right? But the things you make disappear when you want them to, like the dove and the handkerchief from earlier.” Jim had stuffed the hankie in his pocket, but when he went searching for it later, it was gone. 

“I can’t explain it,” Gob says. “I flunked chemistry and barely skated by physics. I don’t have the words for it.”

Maybe Jim does. He thinks about the dove, about the flames on Gob’s fingers, about the flowers that sprouted from his sleeves. “I think maybe you’re… transforming the atoms in the air into something else. Reshaping them. Kind of like alchemy, in a way? But I work at a paper company, so what the hell do I know about science?”

“A paper company?” Gob asks, bewildered. “For three months, I thought you’ve been selling muffins and mittens. Jesus.”

Jim laughs. “You told me one of your secrets, and now you’ve got one of mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I can’t be the first person to think of the bees/beets/beads joke, and I’m kind of disappointed no one else has done a crossover of these shows solely to make that joke. *Gob voice* Come on! 
> 
> _And you have to admit there’s a bit of twisted humor in being kicked out of a magician’s club for being an actual magician._  
>  That gag is kind of the only reason Gob’s magic is real. It just feels like the sort of gag AD would pull in its heyday.


	4. i don't have much in my life, but take it, it's yours

For the Bluths, Thanksgiving is just another day on the calendar, so it’s a little weird when Michael calls and invites Gob to the celebration. 

“Since when do you do Thanksgiving?” Gob asks.

“Since we moved away from the rest of the family,” Michael says. “George Michael and I had a small one last year, just the two of us, but now we think it’s time to bring you into the fold.”

Gob’s honored, actually, despite his apparent exclusion from the party last year.

“Maybe you could bring your soulmate,” Michael says, dropping that in casually, and Gob understands the entire reason he’s being invited. It’s got nothing to do with _him_ , but the curiosity surrounding Jim Halpert.

“Oh, nice, Michael. You don’t really want _me_ there. You just want me to parade Jim around so you can either point out all his flaws or steal him from me,” Gob says.

“Since when have I ever stolen—” Michael begins to say, then he stops, because sometimes he knows when he’s wrong. “Look, I’m sorry about Marta. But I’m not attracted to men, so this one’s all yours.”

“Jim thinks you’re dead, by the way, so how am I supposed to explain you being very much alive?”

“Tell him the truth? Maybe?”

Gob scoffs like that’s ridiculous. “Has that ever worked for you?”

“It’s a coin toss.”

“Besides, Jim’s already invited me to _his_ Thanksgiving.”

“Well, you really should have opened with that.”

* * *

Thanksgiving falls on a crisp winter morning, the kind that seems to demand staying inside, bundling up in sweaters and scarves and drinking hot chocolate by the fire.

They take Jim’s Corolla rather than the stair car, which is probably a good call. “Should I tell them you blew me, like, fifteen minutes ago?” Gob asks during the drive, just to make Jim blush.

“Maybe not right away,” Jim says dryly, “if you want to make a good impression.”

“Wait until the pie comes out. Got it.”

Gob spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what to wear; he’s never cared this much about making a good impression, because he’s always known his relationships wouldn’t last by virtue of not being soulmates. But Jim is special, _the one_ , and Gob doesn’t want to screw things up by getting off on the wrong foot with his (hopefully) future in-laws.

So Gob tried on an array of different outfits until Jim arrived at the apartment and told him not to worry so much. “It’s not really a dress-up occasion,” Jim said, wearing a sweater over a T-shirt and jeans. “But you look”— Jim took a breath as his gaze raked over Gob — ”really good.”

Gob grinned, studying himself in the full-length bedroom mirror. “It’s a $3,500 suit, Jim. For that price, I better look _damn_ good.”

Jim took to his knees to show Gob just how good he thought he looked, and afterwards Gob changed into something less ostentatious.

The front lawn of the Halpert household is covered in festive decorations; the bushes out front are strung with colorful lights, along with the roof trim of the house itself. An ornate autumn wreath hangs on the front door. 

Jim rings the doorbell, and his mother answers mere seconds later, sweeping him into a tight hug. She looks much younger than Lucille, but Gob can see evidence of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. “Jim, I’m so glad you could make it!” She plants a kiss on his cheek, and Jim wipes the lipstick residue with the sleeve of his sweater. 

“Mom, this is my soulmate, Gob,” Jim says, beaming.

“It’s wonderful to finally meet you!” she says, wrapping Gob in a hug just as tight as the one she gave Jim. Gob has no idea how to handle a hug from a maternal figure. “Jim’s told me so much about you!”

“Really?” Gob asks, stunned. He’s still recovering from the hug, his thoughts disordered. “Good things?”

Jim’s mom laughs like Gob’s making a joke. “Oh, he said you were funny!” She puts her arms around both of them and brings them inside. “We’re all delighted to have you both. Jim, your brothers aren’t in yet, but Larisa is here.”

“Great. The more the merrier,” Jim says, giving Gob a quick ‘sorry if she’s overbearing’ look. 

“Jim? I thought I heard you down here,” a male voice says from the hallway. Jim and his father actually hug, which shocks Gob the way a devout Catholic would be scandalized watching _The Exorcist_. Mr. Halpert sees Gob and says, “You must be Gob, the soulmate. Good to finally put a face to the name.” He has a strong handshake, and Gob feels overwhelmed already. “Jim’s had nothing but good things to say about you.” Mr. Halpert claps Gob on the shoulder, like they’re friends already. “I hear you’re a magician?”

In the Bluth household, this acknowledgement of Gob’s career would be a thinly veiled criticism, and Gob doesn’t know how to hear it from parental figures any other way. “Yeah, well, y’know, it pays the bills,” Gob says with a shrug. “I think I’m more of a showman than a magician, but why split hairs?” He laughs, trying to fight through the inexplicable anxiety rising within him like mercury in a thermometer. 

“Don’t sell yourself short, kid. Magic’s a lost art.”

_What the fuck_? Gob wonders, as a spark of pride flutters in his belly. “That’s really nice of you to say, Mr. Halpert.”

“Oh, just call me Gerry. We’re family.”

In the living room, Gob meets Jim’s sister Larisa, who looks him over with the same appraising gaze Jim gave him earlier in the bedroom. “He cleans up nice, even in black and white,” she says to Jim. 

Flushing red to his hairline, Jim gives Gob a panicked look.

But Gob doesn’t mind being ogled. “You should see me in my $3,500 suit,” he says, tossing Jim a grin that makes him blush even harder.

Larisa laughs, noticing Jim’s chagrin. “How’d you guys meet?”

“I’m a magician,” Gob says. “I did a show at Jim’s boss’s wedding.”

Larisa’s eyes widen in recognition. “You’re Gob Bluth? Oh my God! I thought you looked familiar!” 

“You’ve seen my act?”

“Yes! A few years ago in Philly! You had the stage made up to look like a circus, or a casino. Or both. It looked really cool.”

Gob remembers that show — or series of them, it was somewhat of a tour — fondly, especially the part where he ends the second act by vanishing from a fancy throne onstage.

“I’m sorry, what? You saw his act before?” Jim interjects. Apparently this is the first he’s hearing about it.

“I never told you?” Larisa says.

“Maybe you did, and I forgot,” says Jim. He looks at Gob as if seeing him in a new light, a _good_ light, as if there is an awareness that his soulmate is somewhat of a celebrity. Gob’s not _that_ famous, but occasionally someone in a bar will recognize him and buy him a drink, or ask him to break the magician’s code by revealing his secrets.

“Six degrees of separation,” Larisa says. “I wonder if you guys ever crossed paths before but never saw each other.”

It’s unlikely, since Gob has only lived in the area for about two years, but who knows?

A little while later, the house is filled with the aromas of baked ham and dressing. Jim’s brothers Tom and Pete show up, bringing their wives and kids along, and Gob is introduced in a whirlwind of ‘so nice to meet you’s and ‘welcome to the family’s. Pete’s wife, Marcy, is also familiar with Gob’s act, recounting a time she watched one of his television specials a few years ago.

It’s so goddamn weird to be welcomed and appreciated like this by a family, to watch them hug Jim and congratulate him for meeting his soulmate. To listen to Jim’s parents banter back and forth as though they actually like each other and aren’t simply drunk and resentful of their life choices.

Jim’s mom, Betsy, asks Gob to help her peel and slice apples for the pie. She doesn’t criticize him when he almost cuts his fingers with the knife. It’s not like she doesn’t have plenty of chances to do so; Gob is clumsy with sharp objects and ends up almost nicking his fingertips with the blade about ten times.

_Can’t you do anything right?_ Gob hears his father scolding in his head. Dad never oversaw Gob’s attempts at cooking at home, but he did get to see Gob lose a few bananas in the chocolate while he worked at the family banana stand. Gob couldn’t stop his hands from shaking when Dad watched him like that, scrutinizing, waiting for Gob to screw up and once again prove himself as the family mistake.

“Oh, be careful, honey,” Betsy says when Gob just barely misses his thumb with the knife again. “You don’t wanna hurt yourself.” She says it like she’s actually concerned for him. 

_So that’s what mothering looks like._

A weird, tight feeling presses against the inside of Gob’s chest.

While the pie bakes in the oven, the remainder of the food is served, and everyone sits at the table. Jim’s parents ask Gob about his magic act and how he’s enjoying life in Scranton. The question is raised of where he used to live, but everyone seems to be dancing around the topic of Gob’s family. Jim must have warned them ahead of time to avoid that particular subject. The fact that they listened and are actively trying not to step on any conversational landmines astounds Gob. 

The last time Gob brought someone he was dating to meet the family, the first thing out of Lucille’s mouth was, “Be careful, dear. Don’t let him knock you up. The last thing you need is a flesh-and-blood shackle to someone who isn’t your soulmate.”

Jim and Gob are seated side by side, with Larisa to Jim’s left. Across from them sit Jim’s parents. Pete, his eight-year-old daughter Vanessa, and Marcy are at one end, with Tom, his wife Jennifer, and their six-year-old son Brian on the other. It’s almost a bizarro mirror of the Bluths from years past, when Tracey was alive and Gob still brought his partners to meet the family.

Gob’s too shy to ask for alcohol (he doubts this picture-perfect family needs it, anyway), so he’s stuck drinking iced tea, which sucks, because if it’s not spiked with vodka, rum, tequila, gin, and Triple Sec, who gives a shit? He needs liquor to quell the sense of unease crawling through him, the sense that his illusions will be revealed, and he’ll be the black sheep of another family, one he doesn’t even officially belong to.

Underneath the table, Gob’s leg begins to jackhammer. Jim notices this and surreptitiously lays a hand over the jiggling leg. Gob relaxes, if only for a moment or two.

At least the food is good. There’s a sliced ham and platters of honey-glazed carrots, creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, buttery rolls, mac and cheese for the kids, and savory dressing. Gob can’t remember the last time he ate this well or took spoonfuls of things he couldn’t even identify. 

“What’s this stuff?” Gob asks, scooping out some colorful fruit glaze-looking slop in a bowl.

“Roasted beets,” Betsy says.

Gob and Jim start laughing, both of them engaging in couple’s telepathy and thinking of their date at Schrute Farms. “I took Jim to a beet farm for his birthday,” Gob says when his giggles subside.

“One of my co-workers runs a bed and breakfast on a beet farm,” Jim says, then he tells them about the whole weekend, including the winemaking class. “It was really… interesting,” he says, smiling shyly at Gob.

Larisa gives a dreamy sigh. “That is so _sweet_. I wish I could meet my soulmate already.”

Gob already likes Larisa, feeling some strange sense of kinship with her, though it probably helps that she’s a fan of his act. “Well, hey, it took me a long time to meet mine. Actually, I kind of assumed it would never happen and sort of gave up looking. But it did happen, so, see, there’s hope.”

“How long have you guys been together?” Marcy asks.

Gob gives his best guess. “About four months.”

“Three months and two weeks,” Jim corrects. Clearly he’s been marking the days on his desk calendar.

“Thinking about tying the knot?” Tom teases Jim. “I mean, you’re soulmates, right? Why wait?”

Gob looks at Jim, hoping Jim will commandeer this one to safe harbor. Gob doesn’t want to shut down the idea of marriage, especially in front of Jim’s entire family, but he doesn’t want to fall back into the cycle of lying to avoid awkward situations either. Where the fuck is the liquor in this house, and why isn’t it in Gob’s mouth?

“I… We haven’t actually talked about it yet,” Jim says diplomatically. “It’s still pretty early. Maybe at the six month mark?”

Gob expects the family to have some great objection to Jim’s decision, but they carry on as if his answer is perfectly acceptable. Throughout dinner, Gob feels like there’s a stick of dynamite strapped underneath the table, and they’re all waiting for it to blow, with an errant question about Gob’s family to light the fuse. It never comes, though Gob can’t shake the tension he’s carrying in his shoulders.

While the pie cools after dinner, Vanessa and Brian corner Gob in the living room, asking him to show them one of his tricks. 

Gob smiles. “A trick, huh?”

He’s briefly whisked away to a black-and-white memory of being Vanessa’s age and running into Dad’s study, announcing, “Dad, look! I learned a trick! Can I show you?” Gob rushed up to Dad’s desk, taking care to keep the small folding flower square underneath his watchband. Every good magician needs at least one ‘palming well’, or so he read in the pamphlet that came along with his magic kit; Gob learned the watchband was a very good one indeed.

Dad looked up from his papers, glaring at Gob as though he were an unpleasant stain on the carpet. “A trick is what a whore does for money,” he said, so Gob took to calling them ‘illusions’ instead. It sounded cooler anyway.

“Yeah, I’ll show you a trick,” Gob says. He looks at Vanessa. “You like flowers?” He passes his right hand over his left, and a vine of colorful flowers blooms from the inside of his left sleeve. It’s the same illusion he did for Dwight at the inn, one of Gob’s go-tos for on-the-spot magic, but the kids are far more delighted than Dwight was. 

“Wow!” Brian gasps, and Vanessa’s eyes are wide in wonder.

“Pretty cool, right?” Gob lets the bouquet grow. This used to be hard for him, back when he was still learning illusions from magic sets and discovering the extent of his abilities. He learned that concentration was a kind of magic too, and that being able to use it meant channeling some unseen energy inside his fingertips while using his mind’s eye to create the illusion. 

“And now I’ll make it disappear!” Gob clutches the stems of the bountiful bouquet in his hand, and his magic works in reverse: deconstructing instead of creating. The flowers pull apart like the tower of ash at the end of a cigarette. This is the bit that really amazes the kids. Even at eight and six, they probably figure the bouquet is fake, but watching it crumble into dust turns any child skeptic into a believer.

“Awesome!” Vanessa says, and Gob vows to be these kids’ cool uncle and buy them beer in, like, fifteen years. They remind him so much of George Michael and Maeby at these ages. 

When Gob has a moment to himself, he slips out and sits on the back porch. It’s overwhelming being smothered with so much one-on-one positive attention, and he just has to get away from it for a moment. How nuts is that? For Jim, this is normal, and he doesn’t feel the need to _escape_ from too many hugs and handshakes and well-wishes. 

Inside the house, Jim’s parents work together in the kitchen, cleaning up and loading dishes into the dishwasher. Gob watches this display of comfortable domesticity with envy. Why couldn’t his parents have a relationship like that? Even if George Senior and Lucille get their shit together via marriage counseling, or by some act of God they find their soulmates this late in life, the damage is already done.

The sun is a hazy, golden orb sinking below the horizon. Inside the fenced perimeter of the yard is an apple tree, and Gob wonders if that’s where the apples for the pie came from. 

The glass door to the porch slides open, interrupting Gob’s thoughts. “Mind if I join you?” Jim asks and does so before Gob can answer, but Gob wasn’t going to turn him down. Jim sits beside Gob on the outdoor sofa. “You doing okay?”

Gob’s never going to get used to the genuine concern Jim shows him. “Just needed some air.”

“Well, you came to the right place.”

Gob doesn’t say anything for a moment, expecting to throw a lid on the emotions boiling inside of him and call it a day. But maybe if he just lets a little bit out, like a pressure-release valve…

“Why didn’t I get to have this?” Gob finally says, and he winces, because he sounds so goddamn _whiny_. At least his parents were rich and kept a decent roof over his head. He never had to go hungry or wear hand-me-downs or shower with his brothers to keep the water bill low. What the fuck is he bitching about?

Gob rakes a hand through his hair. “Forget it. I’m being stupid. I just can’t—” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, so he stops talking.

Jim curls his hand around Gob’s forearm, then entwines their fingers. “You’re not stupid. And I’m your soulmate, so I think I know what I’m talking about.” He squeezes Gob’s hand. “I should have realized this would be hard for you. I mean, I _did_ know that, obviously, but… I’m sorry. If you want to leave, we can.”

Leaving would seem like surrender, and Gob’s run away from too many of his problems to stick yet another feather into his escapism cap. “I’m fine. I just need a drink.”

“Do you? ‘Cause I _think_ you might use drinking as a way to escape dealing with what’s bothering you.”

That sounds like something Tobias would say in his rare moments of actual insight. 

“But, y’know, the whole point of a soulmate is that I’m here for you,” Jim says. “You can tell me anything. Kind of like a therapist, except you don’t have to pay me.” He puts his lips to Gob’s ear, as if sharing state secrets. “And I get to blow you.”

Gob feels hot all over.

Appreciative of Jim’s openness, Gob leans against him. Maybe he’ll give this whole ‘talking about his feelings’ thing a shot. “Is it totally crazy that it kind of makes me mad how nice they are? I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. When does your family rip off their masks and reveal they’ve been aliens all along?”

“Oh.” It seems to occur to Jim that he might have mistaken Gob’s frustration at the Bluths’ behavior for grief over their absence. “No, it’s not crazy. You had to deal with a lot growing up. I can’t even imagine what that was like. But, in all fairness, I told my brothers to go easy on you. Usually, they’re a bunch of dicks.”

Gob likes that Jim’s still holding his hand. It’s such a small gesture, but it’s more than his parents ever afforded him. “Until today, every happy family I’ve seen has been on TV or in a movie. And even as a kid, I figured it had to be fake, because almost everything else on TV is fake too. Horses can’t really talk, people don’t actually dress up in spandex and fight crime, lightsabers don’t exist. Half the time, the actors’ hair isn’t even real. So, families full of people who like each other? Just another lie made up by Hollywood. Except it’s not, is it?”

Jim’s been watching Gob this whole time. His face is so full of tenderness that Gob can’t look at him for too long, as though Jim is the sun and Gob will simply burn up.

Seemingly at a loss for words, Jim puts his arm around Gob’s shoulders and squeezes him close.

* * *

It’s a calm, unassuming Saturday morning in Gob’s apartment. Jim cooks up some pancakes, the aroma of which coaxes Gob out of bed.

“Since when do I have food?” Gob wonders, cinching the belt of his robe. His fridge is somewhat understocked, so that’s a valid question.

“Since this morning. I went to the store while you were asleep.”

“Smells good. What’re we having?”

“Banana pancakes.” Jim deposits three flapjacks onto a plate, skewers some pre-sliced banana pieces with a knife, and slides them on top of the pancakes. “Okay, they’re just regular pancakes with bananas on top. Maybe that’s a little underwhelming.”

Gob glances from the pancakes to Jim, then recognition lights up his face. “Oh, I get it! Bananas! For the Bluth banana stand!”

Last night, Gob told Jim about the Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana stand his family used to operate on the Oceanside Wharf boardwalk. 

Jim grins, sheepish. “Is that too corny?”

“No, it’s…” Gob seems to be searching for the word. “Nice.”

Jim makes a plate for himself, slathering the cakes in chopped nuts, chocolate and maple syrup before sitting at the small table Gob recently bought at a garage sale. 

Gob’s still standing by the counter, like he’s trying to figure out why Jim would do this. “Is this a bribe? You want me to sneak into your workplace and steal some files?”

“What? No. I just… did something nice for you. That’s all. No strings attached.” Kindness without an ulterior motive is something Gob’s not used to. Jim will have to keep up the thoughtful gestures until Gob is no longer suspicious of them, until kindness becomes his new normal.

Still wary, Gob pours more chocolate syrup than might truly be necessary onto his pancakes. He does the same with the maple syrup and chopped nuts. He joins Jim at the table and mutters, “Thanks,” as if he expects to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under him at any moment.

Jim tells him, “my pleasure,” and they eat in a comfortable silence for a minute or two. “So my office is having a Christmas party on the 22nd. It’s not a big deal or anything, just an office party.” He studies Gob’s face. “Would you want to be my plus-one?”

Gob sits back in his chair, nodding smugly. “Here it is. I knew this was a bribe!”

“It’s not a bribe. I’m just asking if you want to come.” In his head, Jim imagines Michael Scott cracking a joke about that particular choice of words. “We probably won’t even be there very long. You’ll meet my coworkers and want to leave immediately.”

“Will there be alcohol?”

“That’s against policy, but I’m sure Meredith will sneak some in.”

On Monday, Angela comes around the bullpen to take a headcount for the party. “Jim,” she asks, hovering over him with a clipboard, “are you bringing a plus-one to the party?”

“Yes, actually, I am,” Jim says, smiling despite himself. 

Unimpressed, Angela marks this down on her list before moving on. 

“Tuna’s got a girlfriend?” Andy calls from his desk. “How long has this been going on?”

“Four months,” Jim says, not taking his eyes off his computer as he types.

“It’ll never last,” Dwight says.

Neither Dwight nor Andy are bringing plus-ones, and Jim worries he might be rubbing his soulmate in the faces of the uncoupled. Then again, Jim felt personally attacked by seeing happy soulmate couples before he met Gob, so it’s his turn to enjoy himself. 

“You’re bringing someone?” Michael Scott asks, emerging from his office like he has a radar for talk pertaining to Jim’s love life. “That’s great, Jim! God, I thought you were _never_ gonna get over Pam!” He laughs, and Jim dies a little inside. Inviting Gob to this circus might have been a mistake.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"This is my soulmate, Michael. My one-in-a-billion chance at happiness, and if anyone’s going to screw it up, it’s gonna be me."_  
>  *narrator voice* Gob had no idea how prophetic that line would prove to be.


End file.
